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2005-2006 Fellows

Sabine Frühstück

University of California, Santa Barbara
Department of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies

Sabine Frühstück is Associate Professor of Modern Japanese Cultural Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  She is the author of Colonizing Sex: Sexology and Social Control in Modern Japan (2003).

Project Summary

The Japan Self-Defense Forces (1952-present), or SDF, operate under paradoxical conditions: Article 9 of the post-WWII constitution prohibits Japan from maintaining armed forces, yet Japan has armed forces that are equipped with the most advanced military technology and the world’s third-largest budget.  Service members are trained for combat like those in most other military establishments, yet they serve exclusively non-traditional needs such as community works, disaster relief, and peace-keeping.  The SDF have not once engaged in combat, yet the integration of women has been slow and hesitant.  Shaped by their ambiguous status, the SDF are active in wider debates about the very roles they are supposed to fulfill in Japan and abroad. The following core question drives the study: how have the SDF established themselves within the anti-militarist Japanese environment and as an avant-garde force - in terms of missions, service member profiles, and military-societal relations - internationally?  The response to this question will culminate in the book Japan Avant-Garde: The Army of the Future.