Value of Research Specialization: From the mid-nineteenth century until today, &ldquoJapan&rdquo has frequently been imagined in Western discourse as a supernatural entity; at the same time, Gothic tales from each nation have been exchanged, consumed, and adapted. By better understanding this phenomenon, in works ranging from the prose of Lafcadio Hearn and Winnifred Eaton to the films of Shimizu Takashi, one can better understand the cultural relationship between the two countries as well as the layers of complexity that accompany constructions of &ldquoforeignness. &rdquoArgument of Dissertation: Cosmopolitanism, following Kant, is often articulated through concepts of unity and rationality. I argue that the cultural exchange between the United States and Japan in the last century suggests a different kind of cosmopolitanism, one that instead uses Gothic tropes to interrogate the Self as it projects its own hidden &ldquoforeignness" onto distant lands. This argument builds upon theories of Julia Kristeva, Paul Ricouer, and Jean Baudrillard that argue for radical alterity. In the macabre and spectral visions of one another, the United States and Japan glimpse the excesses within their modernization.Contribution of Dissertation: My dissertation expands and changes out current understanding of the U.S.-Japan cultural relationship, specifically in literature and film. It attempts to challenge a dominant view that &ldquoJapan&rdquo has served solely as the Other in Western thought and rather establishes the manner in which authors and filmmakers have used this theme as an opportunity to subvert the status quo and interrogate modernity's excess. The dissertation concludes with an analysis of Japanese horror films and their American re-makes in order to understand how one might begin to conceive of a shared affect through revisions of the &ldquouncanny&rdquo produced by these transnational encounters.
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