Science across the Meiji divide: vernacular literary genres as vectors of science in modern Japan

Meade, Ruselle ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1428-3489 2024. Science across the Meiji divide: vernacular literary genres as vectors of science in modern Japan. History of Science 62 (2) , pp. 227-251. 10.1177/00732753231170413

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Abstract

Histories of Japanese science have been integral in affirming the Meiji Restoration of 1868 as the starting point of modern Japan. Vernacular genres, characterized as ‘premodern’, have therefore largely been overlooked by historians of science, regardless of when they were published. Paradoxically, this has resulted in the marginalization of the very works through which most people encountered science. This article addresses this oversight and its historiographical ramifications by focusing on so-called kyūri books—popular works of science—published in the years following the Restoration when there was unprecedented public interest in science. It asks what if we take these kyūri books on their own terms as science books, just as those of the time saw them? This article explores three genres of kyūri books, namely fictionalized formats, such as the epic tale (monogatari); epistolary guides; and genres, such as the sutra, that drew on religious textual practices. It argues that these literary genres provided interpretive frameworks that shaped readers’ encounter with ‘modern’ science. This exploration underscores the importance of engaging with vernacular genres to understand the emergence of science as a global category in the nineteenth century.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Modern Languages
Publisher:	Sage
ISSN:	0073-2753
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	11 April 2023
Date of Acceptance:	30 March 2023
Last Modified:	10 Jun 2024 10:14
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/158521

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