A ‘Black Hero’ for young Japanese: Recounting the life of Toussaint Louverture in Meiji Japan

The Haitian revolutionary hero Toussaint Louverture (1743-1803) was introduced to a Japanese reading public in 1890 through the pages of the juvenile magazine Shōnen’en (Youth’s Garden).

This biography of Louverture, entitled ‘A Black Hero’, was intended to challenge ideas of racial hierarchy prevalent in late-nineteenth century Japan. In this talk, I chart the transnational journey of Louverture’s biography, showing how Louverture was presented as a triumphant figure of overcoming to promote aspiration among Japanese youth.

I also explore how the relationship between New World slavery and empire building was portrayed in the context of growing expansionist ambitions in Meiji Japan.

Event recording

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About the speaker

Dr Ruselle Meade is a Lecturer in Japanese Studies in the School of Modern Languages at Cardiff University. She researches translation in nineteenth and twentieth-century Japan and is particularly interested in how narratives and concepts are transfigured through translation.

She is co-editor, along with Claire Shih and Kyunghye Kim, of The Routledge Handbook of East Asian Translation (forthcoming from Routledge in 2024). Her recent articles include ‘Minakata Kumagusu in London: Challenging Eurocentrism in the Pages of Nature’ in Notes and Records: the Royal Society Journal for the History of Science (with Bernard Lightman), and ‘Science across the Meiji divide: Vernacular literary genres as vectors of science in modern Japan’ in History of Science.

Contact

• Organiser: SOAS Japan Research Centre
• Contact email: centres@soas.ac.uk