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The Twenty-Year Occupation: Cultural Reimagination And The American Occupation Of Japan, Phillip Jones May 2022

The Twenty-Year Occupation: Cultural Reimagination And The American Occupation Of Japan, Phillip Jones

Masters Theses

In the wake of the violence and racial animosity of World War II, the United States carried out an ideologically ambitious occupation of Japan, with the stated purposes of demilitarizing their former enemy and facilitating Japan's reintroduction to the world as an appropriately reformed nation. Between 1945-1952, Japan and the United States engaged in complex and often contradictory processes of cultural reimagination, through which they reimagined the recent past, each other, and their roles in the world. I contend that the Occupation of Japan can only be appropriately understood through these processes, placed within the appropriate historical context. These processes …


Benjamin Smith Lyman: Geologist At The Intersection Of Hokkaido, Japan, And The United States, Benjamin Ashby Oct 2021

Benjamin Smith Lyman: Geologist At The Intersection Of Hokkaido, Japan, And The United States, Benjamin Ashby

Masters Theses

Benjamin Smith Lyman was a geologist from Northampton, Massachusetts, who was contracted by the Japanese government in 1872 to carry out coal surveys on the island of Hokkaidō 北海道. What started out as a standard geological survey, quickly evolved into a lifelong interest in Japan for Lyman. The large collection of letters, books, photographs, and other documents housed under the Benjamin Smith Lyman Collection at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, serve as a primary source on both early relations between the Japanese and the West and the beginnings of the large network of academic writings which today can be classified …


Ancient Magic And Modern Accessories: Developments In The Omamori Phenomenon, Eric Teixeira Mendes Aug 2015

Ancient Magic And Modern Accessories: Developments In The Omamori Phenomenon, Eric Teixeira Mendes

Masters Theses

This thesis offers an examination of modern Japanese amulets, called omamori, distributed by Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines throughout Japan. As amulets, these objects are meant to be carried by a person at all times in which they wish to receive the benefits that an omamori is said to offer. In modern times, in addition to being a religious object, these amulets have become accessories for cell-phones, bags, purses, and automobiles. Said to protect people from accidents, disease, loneliness, failure, computer viruses, among many other things, these objects are one of the few material aspects of religion that are a …