The curious case of the camel in modern Japan : (de)colonialism, orientalism, and imagining Asia / Ayelet Zohar.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Zohar, Ayelet, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Arts and society.

Orientalism in art.

Asia--Relations--Japan.

Asia.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Leiden, The Netherlands : Koninklijke Brill NV, [2022]

Summary:

In The Curious Case of the Camel in Modern Japan, Ayelet Zohar addresses issues of Orientalism, colonialism, and exoticism in modern Japan, through images of camels – the epitome of Otherness, and a metonymy for Asia in the Japanese imagination.

In The Curious Case of the Camel in Modern Japan Ayelet Zohar critically analyzes camel images as a metonymy for Asia, and Japanese attitudes towards the continent. The book reads into encounters with the exotic animals, from nanban art, realist Dutch-influenced illustrations, through misemono roadshows of the first camel-pair imported in 1821. Modernity and Japan’s wars of Pan-Asiatic fantasies associated camels with Asia’s poverty, bringing camels into zoos, tourist venues, and military zones, as lowly beasts of burden, while postwar images project the imago of exotica and foreignness on camels as Buddhist ‘peace’ messengers. Zohar convincingly argues that in the Japanese imagination, camels serve as signifiers of Asia as Otherness, the opposite of Japan’s desire for self-association with Western cultures.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

90-04-51834-7

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789004518346 DOI