9724689 Hicks This award supports a 12 month National Science Foundation Dissertation Enhancement award for Dr. David Hicks at the Chiba University Department of Cultural Anthropology, Chiba, Japan. Dr. Hick's student, Ms. Jennifer Callans, will work with Dr. Hideo Takei, Professor of Anthropology, on a research project entitled, "Meiji Era Art Motifs and Contemporary Japanese Conceptions of Identity." The proposed research seeks to illuminate how art stimulates cultural identity by determining whether natural or technological motifs associated with the Meiji Era (1868- 1912) serve as a foundation for Japanese collective identity. Although the Meiji Era is considered a crucial period in Japanese history, there has been no attempt to examine the association between Meiji art and a contemporary Japanese sense of collective self, that is, "Japaneseness" (Nihonrashisa). The proposed research builds on current historical and anthropological studies to analyze how the Japanese people create and sustain a sense of collective identity and how diverse interpretations of the identity potentially undermine existing attitudes and induce social change. ***
