
Prologue: Minakata Before Contributing to Intellectual Periodicals Minakata Kumagusu (1867–1941) left Japan for the United States in 1886, at the age of nineteen. After living in Michigan and Florida for four years (including a short stay in Cuba), he moved to London in 1892, when he was twenty-five. He remained in the English capital for eight years until September 1900, when he ended his fifteen years abroad, mostly for financial reasons. Minakata’s life overseas appears to have been of a diffuse nature, a feature ultimately characterizing his whole life. His main aims changed several times. Initially he entered a school of finance and accounting in San Francisco, in January 1887. In August that year, however, he left and headed east. After a day’s stay in Lincoln, Nebraska, to visit the University of Nebraska, he traveled on through Chicago to Lansing, Michigan, and enrolled in ... ... [Read more]