Positioning Tokyo as Global City: Anglo-American Narratives of the New Japanese Capital, 1868 - 1922

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 18K12316
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 02030:English literature and literature in the English language-related
• Research Institution: Sophia University
• Principal Investigator: WILLIAMS LAURENCE 上智大学, 外国語学部, 准教授 (50750486)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: travel writing / British literature / orientalism / Japan / postcolonial theory / Tokyo

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This research project examined British narratives of Edo/Tokyo during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Firstly, I investigated what British people knew about Japan - and Edo in particular - during the "sakoku" period. Although it has often been asserted that British people knew little about Japan during this time, I was able to establish that a considerable amount was known about Japanese geography and history. Several British people in fact made journeys to Japan in the early nineteenth century, disguised as Dutch merchants. Next, I examined travel narratives written about Tokyo from the 1860s by British travellers such as Lafcadio Hearn and Isabella Bird. I also conducted research projects into British travel to Yokohama on steamship routes, and on British trips to Mount Fuji. Finally, I investigated the ways in which British residents in Tokyo disseminated knowledge of British culture, focusing on university professors such as Hearn, William Empson, and Edmund Blunden.

Free Research Field

British literature

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

19世紀のイギリスにおける日本観が、啓蒙時代に発達した知識によって形作られている点について検討した。また、日本の開国以前において既に、日本に関する知識を中国を含む他のアジア諸国に関する知識と区別すべく、イギリス人が、如何なる精神構造を形成していたかについても探った。エドワード・サイードが定義した「東洋主義」との差異を問いつつ、馴染みのない江戸/東京の都市空間に関するイギリス人の記述を読み解いた。また、イギリス人の東京旅行が、英米の帝国主義や、蒸気船などのインフラの発展とどう関係していたかについても調査した。最後に、この時期にイギリス文化が日本文化にどのような影響を与えたかについて調査した。