« Lecture: Megan Rose, "Hyperfeminine Harajuku: Exploring Queer KAWAII Practices in a Tokyo Subcultural District" (Kanagawa U., Wed., May 21, 3:30-5pm; hybrid) | Main | 【Reminder: Call for Abstracts】GAS Symposium "Dis-ease: Women and (Dis)order in China" (July 28, 2025) »

October 2, 2025

Japan History Group, ISS, University of Tokyo, May 20, 2025

From: Naofumi NAKAMURA <naofumin@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp>
Date: 2025/05/06

The next meeting of the Japan History Group (JHG) at the Institute of Social Science (ISS), University of Tokyo, will be held on Tuesday, May 20, 2025, at 6:00 PM in the Center Meeting Room of ISS (room no.549, Center Kaigi-shitsu), 5th floor of the Akamon Research Building, Hongo Campus.
Presenter: Prof. Jessamyn R. Abel, Pennsylvania State University
 
Discussant: Prof. Iokibe Kaoru, The University of Tokyo
 
Title: Training for Democracy: Railways and the Cultivation of a New Postwar Japan
 
Abstract:
Democracy was not the inevitable outcome for Japan after World War II. The new constitution established the legal framework for a democratic system, but in the rubble of authoritarian government, democratization required more than simply changing laws. A major challenge for the builders of democracy in 1945 was to transform social attitudes and daily practices. By training employees or volunteers and revising work practices to accord with new social conditions, institutions of everyday life (such as Japanese National Railway, NHK, the police, and the Parent-Teacher Association) aimed to help build a popular mindset conducive to democracy. Of course the word "democracy" meant different things to different people. Because these institutions were present in people's daily lives throughout Japan, the specific understandings of democracy they championed had potential to shape the way it would function. This talk will consider the ways in which the promotion of "democracy" often entailed encouragement, under that suddenly ubiquitous banner, of behaviors that also advanced narrow interests.
 
------------------------------------------
Dr. Naofumi NAKAMURA
Professor of Business History
Institute of Social Science, 
The University of Tokyo
naofumin@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Approved by ssjmod at 06:31 PM