From Classical to National Scholarship: Konakamura Kiyonori’s History of Music in Japan (1888) and Its Foreign-Language Prefaces

In 1888, Konakamura Kiyonori published the first book-length history of music in Japan. Written in Japanese, Kabu ongaku ryakushi (A brief history of music and dance) includes two prefaces: one written in kanbun (Sinitic) by Shigeno Yasutsugu and another in English by Basil Hall Chamberlain. Konakamura and Shigeno, both leading scholars in their time, have generally been considered rivals, representing two opposing intellectual schools, kokugaku (national learning) and kangaku (Chinese learning). This article examines Konakamura’s work and particularly Shigeno’s preface in the context of the momentous epistemic transformation that occurred in Japan in the late nineteenth century, when the Sinocentric world order crumbled as a result of Western encroachment and Japan reinvented itself as a modern nation-state, and argues that Konakamura’s work represents a significant moment in the transition from classical to national scholarship discussed (mainly with reference to Europe) by Rens Bod in his New History of the Humanities.