Playing War: Children and the Paradoxes of Modern Militarism in JapanIn Playing War, Sabine Frühstück makes a bold proposition: that for over a century throughout Japan and beyond, children and concepts of childhood have been appropriated as tools for decidedly unchildlike purposes: to validate, moralize, humanize, and naturalize war, and to sentimentalize peace. She argues that modern conceptions of war insist on and exploit a specific and static notion of the child: that the child, though the embodiment of vulnerability and innocence, nonetheless possesses an inherent will to war, and that this seemingly contradictory creature demonstrates what it means to be human. In examining the intersection of children/childhood with war/military, Frühstück identifies the insidious factors perpetuating this alliance, thus rethinking the very foundations of modern militarism. She interrogates how essentialist notions of both childhood and war have been productively intertwined; how assumptions about childhood and war have converged; and how children and childhood have worked as symbolic constructions and powerful rhetorical tools, particularly in the decades between the nation- and empire-building efforts of the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries up to the uneven manifestations of globalization at the beginning of the twenty-first. |
Contents
| 1 | |
PART I PLAYING WAR | 17 |
PART II PICTURING WAR | 105 |
The Rule of Babies in Pink | 211 |
Notes | 221 |
Bibliography | 227 |
| 259 | |
Other editions - View all
Playing War: Children and the Paradoxes of Modern Militarism in Japan Sabine Frühstück Limited preview - 2017 |
Playing War: Children and the Paradoxes of Modern Militarism in Japan Sabine Frühstück Limited preview - 2017 |
Common terms and phrases
adult Alliance American anime appeared armed forces Asia Asia-Pacific Asia-Pacific War Barefoot Gen battle Battle of Okinawa boys cartoon century chil child soldiers children and childhood children's books children's war games China Chinese children comfort letter Defense depicted dren edited elementary school emotional capital empire enemy featured female field film flag front lines Frühstück 2003 girls gokko GSDF Hinomaru Hobby Japan home front images Imperial Army soldiers infantilization innocence issue Japan Japanese children Japanese soldiers Kamishibai Kodansha no ehon Kodansha Picture Book Kodomo manga maps Mari-tan Meiji militarist military missions modern Momotarō nation Nihon Nippon Yūbenkai Kōdansha Norakuro parents peace photographs play players political popular culture recruitment rhetoric role Russo-Japanese War SDF public relations Self-Defense Forces sensō service members sexualized shōjo Shōnen social story Sugoroku teachers tion U.S. Army uniform University Press USFJ video games violence visual vulnerability wartime Yomiuri Shinbun young youth