Panel Proposal
Title:
“Colonial Sciences in Japan’s Great
East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere”, in honor of Professor Shigeru Nakayama
Organizer:
Togo Tsukahara
(Kobe Univ., Japan, byz06433@nifty.com)
Co-organizers:
Prof. Yasushi Kakihara (Tokyo University of Marine Sciences,
ykakihar@kaiyodai.ac.jp),
Dr. Kim Boumsoung
(Tokyo Univ. boumsoung@gmail.com)
and Prof. Dr. Akihisa Setoguchi (Osaka Municipal Univ. asetoguchi@gmail.com)
Discussants and Commenters:
Prof. Dr. Iijima
Wataru (Aoyama Gakuin
Univ., Tokyo,
wiijima@jm.aoyama.ac.jp),
Prof. Dr. Fa-ti
Fan (NYU, ffanffan@gmail.com),
and Prof. Shigeru Nakayama.
Presenters and presentation
titles:
Kuo-Hui Chang (Virginia Tech., USA.
chang.truman@gmail.com)
“The Co-production of Colonial
Politics and Technology: the Japanese Engineering Education in Taiwan,
1920-1945”
Kensuke Abe _currently at National Chengchi University, Taiwan, originally from Kobe, Japan,
kouretu2formosa@yahoo.co.jp_
”Development of the Nationalism
of Taiwanese Doctors”
Lee Taehee
(Seoul National University,
thbbong@naver.com)
“The Changing Role of the
Central Research Institute in Colonial Korea”
Kim Sung Won (Seoul National
University,
uniscience@hanmail.net)
“From Korean Apprentice to
Entomologist in Nanjing : Cho Pok Sung (___) as an
Example of Colonial Naturalist”
Oh, Sun-sil
(Seoul National University,
lailra@naver.com)
“The Transformation of the
Electric Power system in Colonial Korea, 1920s-30s”
Miyagawa Takuya_currently
at Seoul National
University, originally from Kobe University, Japan, tmiyatch@xd6.so-net.ne.jp_
“Japanese
Meteorological System and Colonial Meteorology in Early 20th-Century Korea”.
(Session Background)
Professor Shigeru Nakayama (b.
1928) worked on the history of East Asian sciences, and was one of the closest
friends of Joseph Needham (1900-1995). Among Needham’s
“men from the East”, Professor Nakayama is considered his generation’s
representative of Japan,
and he has enthusiastically encouraged his younger disciples to join his team.
He was the leader from the Land of the Rising Sun, one of the 108 heroes under Needham’s flag.
Like Needham, Professor Nakayama has been an
omnipresent scholar of subjects such as ancient astronomy, mathematics, contemporary
STS, medical sciences, techno-scientific institutions, and civic governance of
the environment. Needham once commented that Nakayama’s
merit was his position between China
and the West, that Nakayama’s strategic topos of Japan would be
a point of break-through in the often polarized tension between the Orient and
the Occident, such was the dichotomy of the East and
the West.
In honor of the 80-year-old
Professor Nakayama, this panel will develop the historian’s strategic position
in the geographical as well as the political sense. It is therefore our
intention to carefully examine the political implications of the history of
science. To bridge the gap between East and West, we explore the chasm once
made by war and aggression, started by the East (Japan) on its own, armed with
techno-scientific instruments from the West.
Professor Nakayama is primarily
known as the historian who introduced Western astronomy into Japan, and also
for his pioneering contemporary STS-related work, which accompanied Japanese
modernization. Among other works, Professor Nakayama worked on Japan’s
colonial imperial universities for the first time in 1963, and he was a
contributing editor of a volume of International Relations (including
techno-science in the period of Japanese expansion) on Japanese History of
Science and Engineering in 1968. In the field of history of science, the issue
of colonialism has long been ignored; only since the 1990s have some historians
started to examine this. But we should emphasize that it was Nakayama-Sensei
who first discussed this issue in 1963, and he has examined this topic as an
important historical issue ever since.
Issues related to Japan’s
colonialism were not straightforward, nor were they accepted historical
research under the political pressure of the Cold War. Professor Nakayama’s
pioneering work on Japan’s
colonial science is now regarded as the self-reflective practice of conducting
historical research on Japan’s
own negative aspects of colonialism. To view the history of colonialism, we
have no intention of justifying any forms of imperialism or colonialism; we
would rather reveal the role played by science and technology. We will continue
Professor Nakayama’s work on Japan’s
colonial management, and its relation to techno-science/medicine in Japan’s
former colonies.
With this in mind, it is
therefore right to reflect on Professor Nakayama’s former work, and develop his
argument, which opened the field. In order to do this, we organized six young history of science researchers from the East Asian
periphery: Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. Special thanks must go to
Prof. Lim Jong-tae and Prof. Hong Sungook,
from Seoul National
University, who are working closely
with the organizers’ research project on the history of science in Japan’s former
imperial universities. We must also be aware of historiographical
problems accompanying Japanese expansion as they relate to the history of
“Japanese” science and technology. As such, it was science carried out within
the then expanded territories of Japan, but it was the product of
interaction between the Japanese and their East Asian neighbors, the colonizers
and the colonized. Rather than justifying the concept of “colonial
modernization”, our intention is to renew East Asian history of science through
interaction, as well as mutual and collective production between the West and
the East, and among the East Asians, (as it might be called a “co-causal”
product in East Asia), and closely examine details that might have been
concealed and untouched because of political conflicts.
We hope that this session will
provide us with an opportunity to exchange our ideas with wider audiences who
share our interests in the history of East Asian sciences. Even though the
session will be conducted in English, we will do our best with our Creole, “New
East Asian Creole English Language (Neacrel)”. The
session will not utilize Japanese, the dominant language of the period with
which we are dealing. So please join us for this panel, which the conference
organizers hope will be “a tribute to a generation”, as well as to honor
Professor Shigeru Nakayama.
In the first part of this
session (Institutionalization of Science and Medicine in Japan’s Empire), we deal with broader
institutional/political historiography of Japan’s colonial science and
medicine, and study the relationship between Japanese colonial policy and
institutionalization of sciences in the Great East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. Kuo-Hui Chang (Virginia Tech., USA) will first examine “the
Co-production of Colonial Politics and Technology: the Japanese Engineering
Education in Taiwan, 1920-1945”; Kensuke Abe (currently at the National Chengchi University, Taiwan, and originally from Kobe,
Japan) will then present his research project “Development of the Nationalism
of Taiwanese Doctors”; and Lee Taehee (Seoul National
University) will discuss “the Changing Role of the Central Research Institute
in Colonial Korea”.
This part will be chaired by
Prof. Yasushi Kakihara (Tokyo University of Marine
Sciences), and commented by Prof. Dr. Iijima Wataru (Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo),
and Shigeru Nakayama-Sensei.
Following this, the second part
of the session (Case Studies on Japanese Colonial Sciences) will discuss case
studies on colonial sciences in Japan,
and explore its various implications, such as nationalism, industrialization,
and the military. Kim, Sung Won (Seoul National University) will discuss “From
Korean Apprentice to Entomologist in Nanjing: Cho Pok
Sung as an Example of Colonial Naturalist”; Oh Sun-sil
(Seoul National University) will present his paper on “the Transformation of
the Electric Power System in Colonial Korea, 1920s-30s”; and Miyagawa Takuya (currently at Seoul National University,
originally from Kobe, Japan) will examine “the Japanese Meteorological System
and Colonial Meteorology in Early 20th-Century Korea”.
This part will be co-chaired by
Dr. Kim Boumsoung (Tokyo
University) and Prof. Dr. Akihisa Setoguchi (Osaka
Municipal University),
and commented by Prof. Dr. Fa-ti Fan (NYU).
(Abstracts for Part 1)
The Co-production of Colonial
Politics and Technology: Japanese Engineering Education in Taiwan, 1920-1945
Kuo-Hui Chang (Virginia
Tech., USA)
In 1895, China ceded the island
of Taiwan to Japan after the
Sino-Japanese war of 1894-1895. The Japanese colonized Taiwan until
the end of World War II in 1945. During the fifty years, Taiwan was developed by
the Japanese as an agricultural product provider for their domestic needs, and
then was transformed to an industrial base in order to help Japan colonize and develop their
Southeast-Asia colonies. The Taiwanese, basically, in this traditional
perspective of colonial politics, were viewed as an exploited tool for Japan’s
economic and military necessities. However, where, if any, was the narrative of
the ruled, namely the Taiwanese, in this colonial politics? Could the Taiwanese
only be narrated from the perspective of the ruler? Was there no narrative from
the Taiwanese themselves other than that they, as the ruled, were explained as
either the ruler’s exploited tool or their rebellious trouble? I will argue
that the Taiwanese, the ruled, had played an active political role to stimulate
the Japanese to construct engineering education in Taiwan in order to approach
modernity. Engineering education, which brought technology into Taiwan, was not
only a disciplinary mechanism for the Japanese, but also a vector for the
Taiwanese to pursue their modernization. I will demonstrate that if we want to
understand the colonial politics in Taiwan, the analysis would be more
fruitful if the technological impact was brought into that analysis. The
embedded and fragmented technology within the colonial politics will be the
issue in this presentation.
Development of the Nationalism
of Taiwanese Doctors
Kensuke Abe (National Chengchi
University, Taiwan)
Is the role of “doctors” merely
to cure illnesses and prevent diseases, or is it also to study new bacteria and
find new methods of medical treatment? Indeed, these are the most important
professional responsibilities which are imposed on them and also their way of
life. However, some doctors were involved with and active in social and
political action in Taiwan,
such as Jiang Weishui, Du Congming
and Li Zhengyuan, who were influential leaders in Taiwan society
in the past. In order to recognize the background and meanings of their social
activity, some historical and sociological studies have already been conducted
by researchers Luo Mingcheng,
Chen Junkai and Fan Yanqiu.
However, the periodical structure of these studies was mostly based on outside
factors (mostly divided by the changing of extrinsic governments and World War
II). They could not focus on either the development of Taiwanese nationalism,
which has been flowing back on these Taiwanese doctors and Taiwan society since
Taiwan’s modernization to the present day, or the development of individual
scales, because the periods of these outside factors were often shorter than a
person’s life (with the exception of the Qing era, Japanese rule: 50 years, KMT
rule: 55 years, and DPP: eight years).
This paper will attempt to
review the time structure and point of view of the current historical and
sociological studies of modernization of Taiwanese doctors and medicine, and
reconstruct its time aspect based on the point of view of Taiwanese individuals
and social history from the end of the 19th century to the late 20th century.
The author would like to highlight the characteristics of Taiwanese doctors in
the modernization period and its influence to the present Taiwanese society.
The Changing Role of the Central
Research Institute in Colonial Korea
Lee, Taehee
(Seoul National University)
Scientific research institutes
in colonial Korea
have generally been portrayed as passive organs of Japanese colonialism, which
carried out the decisions made by the Government General. This description,
however, simplified the complex relationships between the Government General
and scientific research institutes. In fact, they often played an active role
in persuading the political authority or obtaining the aid of other
organizations for their own benefit.
This paper takes the Central
Research Institute (CRI) as an example to show the active roles of scientific
research institutes. The CRI was the only institute of industrial technology
during the Japanese colonial period in Korea. In the 1910s and 1920s, the
CRI mainly focused on the research of handicrafts. In the mid-1930s, however,
the CRI changed its main research focus from handicrafts to the natural
resources of colonial Korea.
This shift was not led by the Government General, but by the CRI, which was
largely supported by industry organizations in colonial Korea. The
Government General took no interest in the CRI and even decided to abolish the
agency in 1931 under the pretext that it was obsolete. To overcome the crisis,
the CRI began concentrating on natural resources. It stressed the usefulness of
natural resources and aimed to attract Japanese enterprises to colonial Korea. From
this change, the CRI was developed into the central institute of the
industrialization in colonial Korea.
This case shows that the CRI’s research activities in the 1930s did not depend on
decisions made by the Government General, but resulted from its negotiations
with the various actors ― the CRI, industry organizations, and the Government
General.
(Abstracts for Part 2)
From Korean Apprentice to
Entomologist in Nanjing:
Cho Pok Sung as an Example of Colonial
Naturalist
Kim, Sung Won (Seoul National
University)
This paper examines the early
career of Cho Pok Sung, one of the representative
Korean naturalists in colonial Korea.
The point is that Cho could develop his career as a naturalist in connection
with Japanese imperial expansion. He was trained as an apprentice
by Mori Tamezo and Doi
Hironobu, and became an assistant for the preparatory course of biology in Keijo
Imperial University
in 1930, despite his lack of competent professional education. From his
collaboration with these Japanese naturalists, Cho extended his research from
the insects of the Korean peninsula to those of Manchuria and China, just as
many other researchers at Keijo Imperial University
did in the late 1930s. As the university became the center of colonial science,
Cho could also extend his personal network to Japanese-occupied territories in China.
From 1935 onwards, Cho could work with
researchers in the Institute of Scientific Research in Manchukuo
and other Japanese organizations in China, for his own projects. Some
of his research projects were sponsored by Japanese military authorities. In
1942, Cho, the former local apprentice of Japanese naturalists, could be
promoted as high as a researcher at Nanjing
Museum. At each level of
his career, Cho improved his position as a naturalist in accordance with the
degree of collaboration he enjoyed with Japanese naturalists. His case
illustrates how Korean naturalists practiced in the research environment of
colonial Korea.
The Transformation of the
Electric Power System in Colonial Korea, 1920s-30s
Oh, Sun-sil
(Seoul National
University)
In the 1920s-30s, colonial Korea’s
electric power industry experienced dramatic growth due to the transformation
from a local generating system to a nationwide grid system consisting of
large-scale plants and high-voltage transmission lines. Consequently, the
Korean electrical system became more firmly established in the late 1930s as
compared to the Japanese system, which was still based on small- and
middle-scale power plants. This paper examines colonial Korea’s
political-economic context, which made this transformation possible, while
focusing on two large-scale hydropower plants as stepping-stones. The first
plant, located at the Pujon
River, had a capacity three times
larger than the biggest plant in Japan. The second plant, located at
the Changjin
River, became the core of
the grid system. This transformation was the product of a negotiation between
Nippon Chisso Hiryō (Nitchitu) and the Japanese colonial government. Nitchitu, an electrochemical enterprise, needed abundant
power resources; the colonial government had to stabilize the public power
system. First, upon failing to get sufficient electricity in Japan, Nitchitu tried
to secure new power resources in Korea. Nitchitu’s
private initiative for expanding its business resulted in the construction of
the Pujon plant, which was totally alien to the
previous system. Second, the colonial government played an important role in
transforming the private plant into an element of the nationwide grid system.
Suffering from the resistance of existing power suppliers and the lack of
funds, the colonial government chose Nitchitu as an
ideal partner. The cooperation between the two made the construction of the Changjin plant possible, which would provide the foundation
for the stable grid system.
Japanese Meteorological System
and Colonial Meteorology in Early 20th-Century Korea
Miyagawa, Takuya_Seoul
National University