Learning to Navigate the World: Imperial Japanese Naval Officer Training in 1910s and 1920s

Abstract
This talk focuses on Imperial Japanese Navy officer training during Japan's early expansion into Asia in the 1910s and 1920s. These experiences, beginning at the Etajima Naval Academy and culminating in a capstone two-year "graduation voyage" to Europe, were designed to shape identities of these new graduates both members of the Navy and citizens of Japan. Through analysis of pictorial yearbooks published by the Navy of these voyages, I will describe and discuss the various ways in which future military leaders of Japan were introduced to the outside world and shown their place in it.

About the Speaker
Elizabeth MacLachlan is an Adjunct Assistant Professor (Honorary) at NUS in the Japanese Studies Department. She received her PhD in Anthropology and is currently working on a biographical manuscript of the lives of her grandparents, Admiral Matsuo Minoru and his wife Tanaka Masue.