Imperial Sovereignty and Colonial Violence: a Talk by Max Ward

On Friday, February 7^th, I (along with several other students from the class) attended a talk by Professor Max Ward on the subject of the Japanese Peace Preservation Law and how that law connects to and exemplifies colonial violence by the Japanese empire. The talk was historically substantial and very interesting, and it was great to listen to comments by other professors from the Department of East Asian Studies, including Thomas Lamarre and Gavin Walker.

What I found particularly interesting about the subject was its biopolitical implications. Ward discussed the Law’s application to thought-criminals and their “rehabilitation” and re-integration into society through hard labour. He also discussed the tension between threats to the Japanese body-politic (Kokutai/国体) from the metropole and the colony. The law frames threats from the metropole as dangerous western thoughts, in essence as external forces contaminating the minds of Japanese citizens. Threats from the colony, however, are framed as internal threats from colonial subjects that must be contained.  

Professor Ward also spoke at length about the importance of the word Kokutai, which can mean “nationality,” “national essence,” or “sovereign,” among other things. Literally, it is made up of the characters for “nation” and “body.” Another applicable translation, therefore, is “body politic.” This brings up interesting considerations. Perhaps the Japanese empire viewed itself as a single body--a Kokutai--in which Japanese families were each “cells” that were useful in the labour they provided to the empire as a whole. Dangerous western thoughts, then, were outside invaders that contaminated cells and needed to be eradicated, similar to viruses in our own bodies.

Complications arise, however, when we apply this lens to the Korean colony. In the body-politic of the Japanese empire, what are Korean colonial subjects, and what is the Korean territory? Is it part of the Japanese Kokutai, or is it external? What is the Korean family “cell” in relation to its Japanese equivalent? This tension between internality and externality in regards to colonial Korea is an interesting notion to consider in this course. It would be interesting to apply this perspective to the films we’ve discussed so far.