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Papers by Federico Marcon
Qualunque parte di questa pubblicazione può essere riprodotta, memorizzata in un sistema di recup... more Qualunque parte di questa pubblicazione può essere riprodotta, memorizzata in un sistema di recupero dati o trasmessa in qualsiasi forma o con qualsiasi mezzo, elettronico o meccanico, senza autorizzazione, a condizione che se ne citi la fonte.
National Gallery of Art , Japan Foundation , Los Angeles County Musem of Art , Princeton University Press, 2019
The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan
BJHS Themes
The analysis of a painting attributed to therangakuscholar Shiba Kōkan is the occasion to recover... more The analysis of a painting attributed to therangakuscholar Shiba Kōkan is the occasion to recover the genesis of a stereotypical narrative of Japanese scientific modernization and to survey the role of books in the intellectual life of Tokugawa naturalists. For the practitioners of materia medica (honzōgaku), the knowledge of nature began and ended with, and in between continuously referred to, books – Chinese, Japanese and later ‘Dutch’. Canonical texts gave scholars terminology, taxonomy, philosophical justification and legitimation, but not all books had equal value in affecting scholars’ practices. A precise hierarchy, in fact, organized texts, from canonical encyclopedias to private fieldnotes, into ‘textual institutions’ that encouraged further research at the same time that they regulated and framed scholars’ cognitive claims.
History of Knowledge, May 22, 2018
<p>The modern Japanese <i>shizen</i> 自然 was systematically used for the first t... more <p>The modern Japanese <i>shizen</i> 自然 was systematically used for the first time to translate the German <i>Natur</i> in 1889, on the occasion of a debate between Mori Ōgai and the critic Iwamoto Yoshiharu. Before the 1880s, <i>shizen</i> was mostly employed as an adjective or adverb meaning 'in itself' or 'spontaneously', and no other single term had a semantic capacity equivalent to 'nature'. This does not mean that no conceptualisation of the material environment existed in pre-Meiji Japan. On the contrary, a constellation of different terms – such as <i>tenchi</i>, 'heaven and earth'; sansui, 'mountains and waters'; <i>shinrabansho</i>, 'all things in the universe'; <i>banbutsu</i>, 'ten thousand things'; <i>honzō</i>, 'the fundamental herbs'; <i>yakusō</i>, 'medicinal herbs'; <i>sanbutsu</i>, 'resources' etc. – expressed different aspects of the natural environment, material reality, natural objects, and the laws that regulated it. This paper sketches a map of these concepts, their different functions and spheres of influence. Then, it argues that the absence of a term analogous to 'nature' should not be perceived as a <i>lack</i> of premodern East Asian cultures, but it rather emphasises that it is the Western 'nature', in its various vernacular declinations, that nurtures troubling semantic and ideological excesses. It finally claims that the adoption and success of the modern <i>shizen</i> functioned as an important ideological support to Japanese modernisation.<br></p>
Ca’ Foscari Japanese Studies, 2021
‘Japanese fascism’ is a historiographical construct rather than a historical reality. Whether Jap... more ‘Japanese fascism’ is a historiographical construct rather than a historical reality. Whether Japan’s sociopolitical developments in the 1930s and early 1940s can be legitimately and authoritatively defined as ‘fascist’ depends on the triangulation of three axes of analysis: historical reconstructions of institutional, political, social, and ideological processes; historiographical surveys of the palimpsest of interpretations historians have given to this period of Japanese history; and metahistorical analyses of the cognitive legitimacy of the category of ‘fascism’. This essay focuses on the second axis, offering a historical survey of the historiographical debate on ‘Japanese fascism’ worldwide.
The 'Global' and the 'Local' in Early Modern and Modern East Asia, 2017
The Journal of Asian Studies, 2020
the chapters in the middle of the book present a large amount of systematized information in pros... more the chapters in the middle of the book present a large amount of systematized information in prose, and the other two chapters offer outlines of insightful analysis and sensitive narratives. Chapters 1 and 4 represent equivalently enjoyable and rigorous reading that, ironically, on the one hand, speaks from the perspective of academicians and professionals of the letters who have contributed to academic discourse and, on the other hand, mainly speaks from the perspective of creative common migrants who offer a glimpse of the Japanese working class.
History and Theory, 2020
This essay, written from the vantage point of a historian specialized in early modern Japan, asks... more This essay, written from the vantage point of a historian specialized in early modern Japan, asks if and in what capacity the history of knowledge offers an advantage for our understanding of the past compared to established historiographical forms. It accounts for the intellectual relevance of this genre of history and concludes with a strong endorsement of its self-reflexive methodology. It also contends that historical research on East Asia is of inestimable value for this historiographical approach because of its resistance to uncritically universalizing Eurocentric terminology and because of its direct engagement with transcultural translation of both archival sources and heuristic apparatus. Historians working on knowledge production in East Asia or in other parts of the "non-Western" world must constantly question the effects of their interpretive categories on the topics and archives they study; they are thus accustomed to the epistemological self-reflection that this new approach seems to require. The essay concludes by advocating metaphorical comparison as a formal model that best expresses historians' heuristic practices.
The American Historical Review, 2017
The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan
The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan
The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan
The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan
The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan
Qualunque parte di questa pubblicazione può essere riprodotta, memorizzata in un sistema di recup... more Qualunque parte di questa pubblicazione può essere riprodotta, memorizzata in un sistema di recupero dati o trasmessa in qualsiasi forma o con qualsiasi mezzo, elettronico o meccanico, senza autorizzazione, a condizione che se ne citi la fonte.
National Gallery of Art , Japan Foundation , Los Angeles County Musem of Art , Princeton University Press, 2019
The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan
BJHS Themes
The analysis of a painting attributed to therangakuscholar Shiba Kōkan is the occasion to recover... more The analysis of a painting attributed to therangakuscholar Shiba Kōkan is the occasion to recover the genesis of a stereotypical narrative of Japanese scientific modernization and to survey the role of books in the intellectual life of Tokugawa naturalists. For the practitioners of materia medica (honzōgaku), the knowledge of nature began and ended with, and in between continuously referred to, books – Chinese, Japanese and later ‘Dutch’. Canonical texts gave scholars terminology, taxonomy, philosophical justification and legitimation, but not all books had equal value in affecting scholars’ practices. A precise hierarchy, in fact, organized texts, from canonical encyclopedias to private fieldnotes, into ‘textual institutions’ that encouraged further research at the same time that they regulated and framed scholars’ cognitive claims.
History of Knowledge, May 22, 2018
<p>The modern Japanese <i>shizen</i> 自然 was systematically used for the first t... more <p>The modern Japanese <i>shizen</i> 自然 was systematically used for the first time to translate the German <i>Natur</i> in 1889, on the occasion of a debate between Mori Ōgai and the critic Iwamoto Yoshiharu. Before the 1880s, <i>shizen</i> was mostly employed as an adjective or adverb meaning 'in itself' or 'spontaneously', and no other single term had a semantic capacity equivalent to 'nature'. This does not mean that no conceptualisation of the material environment existed in pre-Meiji Japan. On the contrary, a constellation of different terms – such as <i>tenchi</i>, 'heaven and earth'; sansui, 'mountains and waters'; <i>shinrabansho</i>, 'all things in the universe'; <i>banbutsu</i>, 'ten thousand things'; <i>honzō</i>, 'the fundamental herbs'; <i>yakusō</i>, 'medicinal herbs'; <i>sanbutsu</i>, 'resources' etc. – expressed different aspects of the natural environment, material reality, natural objects, and the laws that regulated it. This paper sketches a map of these concepts, their different functions and spheres of influence. Then, it argues that the absence of a term analogous to 'nature' should not be perceived as a <i>lack</i> of premodern East Asian cultures, but it rather emphasises that it is the Western 'nature', in its various vernacular declinations, that nurtures troubling semantic and ideological excesses. It finally claims that the adoption and success of the modern <i>shizen</i> functioned as an important ideological support to Japanese modernisation.<br></p>
Ca’ Foscari Japanese Studies, 2021
‘Japanese fascism’ is a historiographical construct rather than a historical reality. Whether Jap... more ‘Japanese fascism’ is a historiographical construct rather than a historical reality. Whether Japan’s sociopolitical developments in the 1930s and early 1940s can be legitimately and authoritatively defined as ‘fascist’ depends on the triangulation of three axes of analysis: historical reconstructions of institutional, political, social, and ideological processes; historiographical surveys of the palimpsest of interpretations historians have given to this period of Japanese history; and metahistorical analyses of the cognitive legitimacy of the category of ‘fascism’. This essay focuses on the second axis, offering a historical survey of the historiographical debate on ‘Japanese fascism’ worldwide.
The 'Global' and the 'Local' in Early Modern and Modern East Asia, 2017
The Journal of Asian Studies, 2020
the chapters in the middle of the book present a large amount of systematized information in pros... more the chapters in the middle of the book present a large amount of systematized information in prose, and the other two chapters offer outlines of insightful analysis and sensitive narratives. Chapters 1 and 4 represent equivalently enjoyable and rigorous reading that, ironically, on the one hand, speaks from the perspective of academicians and professionals of the letters who have contributed to academic discourse and, on the other hand, mainly speaks from the perspective of creative common migrants who offer a glimpse of the Japanese working class.
History and Theory, 2020
This essay, written from the vantage point of a historian specialized in early modern Japan, asks... more This essay, written from the vantage point of a historian specialized in early modern Japan, asks if and in what capacity the history of knowledge offers an advantage for our understanding of the past compared to established historiographical forms. It accounts for the intellectual relevance of this genre of history and concludes with a strong endorsement of its self-reflexive methodology. It also contends that historical research on East Asia is of inestimable value for this historiographical approach because of its resistance to uncritically universalizing Eurocentric terminology and because of its direct engagement with transcultural translation of both archival sources and heuristic apparatus. Historians working on knowledge production in East Asia or in other parts of the "non-Western" world must constantly question the effects of their interpretive categories on the topics and archives they study; they are thus accustomed to the epistemological self-reflection that this new approach seems to require. The essay concludes by advocating metaphorical comparison as a formal model that best expresses historians' heuristic practices.
The American Historical Review, 2017
The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan
The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan
The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan
The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan
The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan