Ep. 23: Japan's Barbarian Past

Brute Norse Podcast

In this episode Eirik recounts his Japonic yuletide odyssey of 2018. He takes a comparative, Scandifuturist look at the prehistory of Japan through the Jōmon, Yayoi, and Kofun periods. It's the story of how hunter-gatherer master potters met their demise at the hands of militant, kami-fearing, rice-farming, mound building, Iron Age settlers from the Asian mainland. Strolling backwards with a voyeur's gaze from the streets of Tokyo to the valleys of Gifu, as Japan is staged as a fellow barbarian periphery beyond the ghost of the Roman Empire, to question Classical and Post-Enlightenment assumptions about how humanity ought to cope with the terror of the past, handing out wedgies to the Western canon and national mythologies as we go. Support Brute Norse: www.brutenorse.com www.twitter.com/brutenorse www.instagram.com/brutenorse www.patreon.com/brutenorse www.teespring.com/stores/brute-norse Suggested reading: - Imamura, Keiji (2003). Prehistoric Japan: New Perspectives on Insular East Asia. Routledge: London - Kolstø, Janemil (2007). Rethinking Yasukuni: From Secular Politics to Religious Sacrifice. Master of Arts Thesis. AHKR, University of Bergen: Bergen - Hardacre, Helen (2017). Shinto: A History. Oxford University Press: New York