{"id":26134,"date":"2012-10-22T01:01:57","date_gmt":"2012-10-22T01:01:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=26134"},"modified":"2012-10-22T01:01:57","modified_gmt":"2012-10-22T01:01:57","slug":"drawn-in-bloodlines-blood-pollution-identity-and-vampires-in-japanese-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=26134","title":{"rendered":"Drawn in Bloodlines: Blood, Pollution, Identity, and Vampires in Japanese Society"},"content":{"rendered":"

Drawn in Bloodlines: Blood, Pollution, Identity, and Vampires in Japanese Society<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

University of Texas, Austin
\nMay 2012
\n117 pages<\/p>\n

Benjamin Paul Miller<\/strong><\/p>\n

Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts<\/em><\/p>\n

This thesis is an examination of the evolution of blood ideology, which is to say the use of blood as an organizing metaphor, in Japanese society. I begin with the development of blood as a substance of significant in the eighth century and trace its development into a metaphor for lineage in the Tokugawa period<\/a>. I discuss in detail blood\u2019s conceptual and rhetorical utility throughout the post-Restoration period<\/a>, first examining its role in establishing a national subjectivity in reference to both the native intellectual tradition of the National Learning and the foreign hegemony of race. I then discuss the rationalization of popular and national bloodlines under the auspices of the popular eugenics<\/a> movement, and the National Eugenics Bill<\/em>. Then, I discuss the racialization this conception of blood inflicted on the Tokugawa era Outcastes, and its persistent consequences. Through the incongruity of the Outcastes ability to \u201cpass<\/a>\u201d despite popular expectations that their blood pollution was visibly demonstrative, I introduce the notion of blood anxiety. Next, I address the conceptual and rhetorical role blood played in articulating Japan\u2019s empire and imperial ambitions, focusing on the Theory of Common Descent and the Investigation of Global Policy with the Yamato Race as Nucleus<\/em> report. I follow this discussion with a detailed examination of the postwar reconceptualization of national subjectivity, which demands native bloodlines and orthodox cultural expressions, and which effectively de-legitimized minority populations. As illustration of this point, I describe the impact of this new subjectivity on both the Zainichi<\/a> and the Nikkeijin<\/a> in lengthy case studies. Finally, I conclude this examination with a consideration of blood ideology\u2019s representation in popular culture. I argue that the subgenre of vampire media allegorizes many of the assumptions and anxieties surrounding blood that have developed since the Restoration, and demonstrates the imprint of blood ideology on contemporary society.<\/p>\n

Table of Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n