The power of the other : Edward S. Morse and the challenge of Japan

Abstract

This is a case study which shows how Japan as the Other (defined as "all those elements of the culture which eluded words and yet impinged upon and helped to shape discourse") affected the career and beliefs of one of America's first generation of Japan experts. Edward S. Morse, a nineteenth-century naturalist who became the first professor of zoology at the Imperial University in Tokyo, was a scientist who before going to the Orient had little interest in art, philosophy or social questions. The experience of Japan served to raise his consciousness in all these realms, turned him into a gentle critic of American life and values and led him to a brief, unsuccessful attempt to share the mindset of Japan (to become the Other). His struggles to maintain the ways of his own culture while sharing those of the Other may be seen as representative of a larger group of Americans who faced the challenge of Japan.

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