Literature among the Ruins, 1945–1955

Postwar Japanese Literary Criticism

Häftad, Engelska, 2020

AvAtsuko Ueda,Michael K. Bourdaghs,Richi Sakakibara,Hirokazu Toeda

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In the wake of the disaster of 1945—as Japan was forced to remake itself from “empire” to “nation” in the face of an uncertain global situation—literature and literary criticism emerged as highly contested sites. Today, this remarkable period holds rich potential for opening new dialogue between scholars in Japan and North America as we rethink the historical and contemporary significance of such ongoing questions as the meaning of the American occupation both inside and outside of Japan, the shifting semiotics of “literature” and “politics,” and the origins of what would become crucial ideological weapons of the cultural Cold War.The volume consists of three interrelated sections: “Foregrounding the Cold War,” “Structures of Concealment: ‘Cultural Anxieties,’” and “Continuity and Discontinuity: Subjective Rupture and Dislocation.” One way or another, the essays address the process through which new “Japan” was created in the postwar present, which signified an attempt to criticize and reevaluate the past. Examining postwar discourse from various angles, the essays highlight the manner in which anxieties of the future were projected onto the construction of the past, which manifest in varying disavowals and structures of concealment.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2020-06-29
Mått153 x 222 x 15 mm
Vikt308 g
FormatHäftad
SpråkEngelska
SerieNew Studies in Modern Japan
Antal sidor208
FörlagBloomsbury Publishing Plc
ISBN9780739180730

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Introduction, Atsuko Ueda, Richi Sakakibara, Michael K. Bourdaghs, and Hirokazu ToedaPart I: Foregrounding the Cold WarChapter 1: Early Freeze Warning: The Politics and Literature Debate as Cold War Culture, Michael K. BourdaghsChapter 2: The Korean War and Disputed Memories: Kim Dal-su’s Nihon no fuyu and the 1955 System, Ko Youngran, translated by Michael K. BourdaghsChapter 3: Politics and Culture of Fascism, Ann SherifPart II: Structures of Concealment: Cultural AnxietiesChapter 4: Cultural Resentment and Valorization in Postwar Japanese Literary Criticism: Nakamura Mitsuo’s Literary History, Atsuko UedaChapter 5: Small Hopes and a Terror: Kato Shuichi’s and Mori Arimasa’s 1955 Return from France, Doug SlaymakerChapter 6: Language and the People: The Amateur Writing Subject in Kindai bungaku, Shin Nihon bungaku, and Shiso no kagaku, Richi Sakakibara, translated by Atsuko UedaPart III: Continuity and Discontinuity: Subjective Rupture and DislocationChapter 7: Temporalities of Ruin: Shii

This collection of essays by distinguished scholars on both sides of the Pacific is an excellent companion volume to The Politics and Literature Debate in Postwar Japanese Criticism, 1945–52. The provocative essays take up the topic of literary criticism in postwar Japan and open it up to rigorous and multifaceted examination. Japanese literary criticism was intensely argumentative during this period, embroiling writers in debates about political commitment, war responsibility, literary autonomy, and human subjectivity. These debates are discussed and contextualized here in admirably lucid prose. This is essential reading for students and scholars of modern Japan, but is also highly recommended to anyone whose reading and thinking touch on the relation of art and politics in the modern world.