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- Dower, John W. Embracing defeat : Japan in the wake of World War II. New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 1999.
- This book surveys the various ways, from politics to the arts, in which the Japanese reacted to and dealt with their defeat. The author argues that ultimately “the ideals of peace and democracy took root in Japan–not as a borrowed ideology or imposed vision, but as a lived experience and seized opportunity.” He also asserts that the Japanese attitudes towards war guilt, responsibility, democracy, and remilitarization were direct products of their experience of loss and defeat in the Second World War.
- This source will be useful in my research because the author explores in depth a large part of my question; namely, how the Japanese perspective on the issue of comfort women was formed and how it in turn shaped their own self-image. The source is reliable, as the author is a scholar and includes a bibliography at the end.
- I’ve come to understand a lot better from this book how the Japanese attitude towards their previous withdrawal of Korean women to serve as prostitutes is dominated and nearly overshadowed by their own experience during the U.S. occupation.
Source 2:
- Minear, Richard H. Through Japanese eyes. New York: Center for International Training and Education Distributed by Apex Press, 2008.
- This book is a general, comprehensive treatment of Japanese history that focuses on presenting a Japanese perspective on history . It has no central argument, and as the main goal is allowing the the reader to identify with a different “pair of eyes”, it uses somewhat unorthodox techniques of documentation such as frequent inclusion of poetry, songs, and artwork from the times.
- Although it may not be as strictly historical as my others, this source should assist me in generally understanding a viewpoint alien to my own.
- This source has inspired me to consider more the art and self-expression of people to better understand their perspectives. It’s also made me come to see the prostitute as a historical object to be both romanticized and afraid of, in the eyes of the Japanese.
Source 3:
- Hicks, George L. The comfort women : sex slaves of the Japanese Imperial Forces. London: Souvenir Press, 1995.
- This book is concerned with unveiling what it sees as a “massive cover-up” by the Japanese government: the appropriation of women from conquered territories to serve in military brothels. It covers the history of comfort women in Japan, from Geishas in the Tokugawa period all the way to victim testimonies that came many years after WWII and the international dimensions of the current issue.
- This book is going to help me a lot in the human side of my project because it goes in depth on the actual testimonies and lived experiences of comfort women, something that’s missing in my other sources. It is also entirely devoted to the subject of comfort women, whereas my other books only touch on it as a part of a larger argument.
- From this book I can identify better with the deep anger and shame that Korea and Japan feel, respectively, towards this issue. In the light cast upon it by Hicks it’s hard not to consider the institution of comfort women truly atrocious.
Source 4:
- Yang, Kiwoong. "SOUTH KOREA AND JAPAN'S FRICTIONS OVER HISTORY: A LINGUISTIC CONSTRUCTIVIST READING." Asian Perspective 32, no. 3 (2008): 59-86. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42704641.
- This article looks at ROK-Japanese frictions through a linguistic lens, analyzing the characteristics and trends of “blunders and responses”. Many graphs and methods of statistical interpretation are used to show that the political process of blundering “is a type of language game that is linguistically inter-constituted.” It also examines the media portrayal on both sides of these issues.
- This article was originally delivered at an international conference on politics and history in east Asia, and includes a bibliography and timeline for all the events it mentions, so it seems reliable. It’s the only one of my sources to go in depth on Japanese-Korean relationships, and does through a unique lens of linguistics.
- I think, after considering this source, I’ll need to include a part of my final project about the power of specific words and their influence on politics and the perception of history.
Source 5:
- Ion, A. Hamish. The International History Review 25, no. 2 (2003): 473-75. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40109381.
- This review of Japan's Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution during World War II and the US Occupation by Yuki Tanaka covers the main arguments made in the book and its relevance in current historical debate. It concludes with a partial disagreement from the author, stating that he views the issue in terms of slavery, not sex.
- This source was published and presumably peer-reviewed by a historical journal, so I think it’s dependable. It’s also, although indirectly, the only source in my bibliography written by a Japanese.
- This source has made me consider the sexual side of the Allied occupation of Japan in Japan’s history as traumatic and a source of their attitude towards the issue of reparations and comfort women.