Overseas Shinto Shrines Religion Secularity And The Japanese Empire Karli Shimizu by Karli Shimizu 9781350234987, 9781350235021, 1350234982, 1350235024 instant download after payment.

This is the first book to comprehensively examine overseas Shinto shrines and their complex role in the colonisation and modernisation of newly Japanese lands and subjects. Through extensive use of primary resources and fieldwork, this detailed study of overseas shrines reveals the complex historical background of Japan’s modernisation and colonialism. It provides an example of the construction of a non-Western secularity, and contributes to our understanding of the relationship between religion, secularism, and the construction of the modern state.
Shinto shrines became one of the most visible symbols of Japanese imperialism in the early 20th century. From 1868 to 1945, shrines were constructed by both the government and migrants across the Asia-Pacific region, from Sakhalin to Taiwan, from China to the Americas. Drawing on theories about the constructed nature of the modern categories of “religion” and the “secular”, this book argues that modern Shinto shrines were conceived and treated as secular sites within a newly invented Japanese secularism, and that they played an important role in communicating changed conceptions of space, time, and ethics in imperial subjects.
The book traces the development of modern overseas shrines from their earlier conception as essential tools in civilising new land to their later focus on assimilating colonial subjects. Highlighting shrines outside of the official Japanese empire, it examines how modern Shinto shrines accommodated and clashed with competing conceptions of shrines and their location within the political system of secularism.