The Uses of Literature in Modern Japan

The Uses of Literature in Modern Japan PDF Author: Sari Kawana
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350024899
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
The Uses of Literature in Modern Japan explores the varying uses of literature in Japan from the late Meiji period to the present, considering how creators, conveyors, and consumers of literary content have treated texts and their authors as cultural resources to be packaged, promoted, and preserved. As the printed word became a crucial form of entertainment and edification for an increasingly literate public in early 20th-century Japan, literature came to assume a variety of new uses. Touching upon a wide array of sources, Sari Kawana traces the ways in which literary works have morphed into different variants, ranging from textual (compilations, textbooks) and visual (film, manga, other media) to virtual and real world, through innovative publishing and reading practices. She takes up themes such as the materiality of texts, the role of publishers and advertising campaigns, the interplay between literature and other media, and the creation and dissemination of larger cultural fantasies tied to literary consumption. She stresses the agency and creativity with which readers engaged literary works, from divergent readings of propaganda literature to inventive adaptations of canonical texts in adjacent media, culminating in the practice of literary tourism. Moving beyond close reading of texts to look at their historical context, the book will appeal not only to scholars of modern Japanese literature but also those studying the history of the book and modern Japanese cultural history.

The Uses of Literature in Modern Japan

The Uses of Literature in Modern Japan PDF Author: Sari Kawana
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350024899
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book

Book Description
The Uses of Literature in Modern Japan explores the varying uses of literature in Japan from the late Meiji period to the present, considering how creators, conveyors, and consumers of literary content have treated texts and their authors as cultural resources to be packaged, promoted, and preserved. As the printed word became a crucial form of entertainment and edification for an increasingly literate public in early 20th-century Japan, literature came to assume a variety of new uses. Touching upon a wide array of sources, Sari Kawana traces the ways in which literary works have morphed into different variants, ranging from textual (compilations, textbooks) and visual (film, manga, other media) to virtual and real world, through innovative publishing and reading practices. She takes up themes such as the materiality of texts, the role of publishers and advertising campaigns, the interplay between literature and other media, and the creation and dissemination of larger cultural fantasies tied to literary consumption. She stresses the agency and creativity with which readers engaged literary works, from divergent readings of propaganda literature to inventive adaptations of canonical texts in adjacent media, culminating in the practice of literary tourism. Moving beyond close reading of texts to look at their historical context, the book will appeal not only to scholars of modern Japanese literature but also those studying the history of the book and modern Japanese cultural history.

The Uses of Literature in Modern Japan

The Uses of Literature in Modern Japan PDF Author: Sari Kawana
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350024902
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
The Uses of Literature in Modern Japan explores the varying uses of literature in Japan from the late Meiji period to the present, considering how creators, conveyors, and consumers of literary content have treated texts and their authors as cultural resources to be packaged, promoted, and preserved. As the printed word became a crucial form of entertainment and edification for an increasingly literate public in early 20th-century Japan, literature came to assume a variety of new uses. Touching upon a wide array of sources, Sari Kawana traces the ways in which literary works have morphed into different variants, ranging from textual (compilations, textbooks) and visual (film, manga, other media) to virtual and real world, through innovative publishing and reading practices. She takes up themes such as the materiality of texts, the role of publishers and advertising campaigns, the interplay between literature and other media, and the creation and dissemination of larger cultural fantasies tied to literary consumption. She stresses the agency and creativity with which readers engaged literary works, from divergent readings of propaganda literature to inventive adaptations of canonical texts in adjacent media, culminating in the practice of literary tourism. Moving beyond close reading of texts to look at their historical context, the book will appeal not only to scholars of modern Japanese literature but also those studying the history of the book and modern Japanese cultural history.

Modern Japan

Modern Japan PDF Author: W. G. Beasley
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 100051093X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Originally published in 1975, much of Western scholarly writing on Japan had in recent years concerned the study of modernisation. The papers in this volume, which were prepared by leading specialists from Europe and Israel, concentrate on the problems arising from modernisation, rather than on an analysis of the process itself. The historical papers deal with various aspects of the political and international tensions that link modernisation to Japanese expansion and the Second World War: the civil war of 1868; early newspapers and nationalist opinion; the Washington Conference; politics in the 1930s; the bombing of Japan in 1945. Those on literature examine some related themes concerning national attitudes, as expressed in drama and the novel, especially in the context of the relationship of modern ideas and institutions to traditional culture and society. Similar questions are raised by the discussion of new post-war religions, as well as in papers on the use of leisure and on industrial relations in contemporary Japan. Finally, there are two contributions dealing with the economic consequences of the industrial miracle that has marked the latest phase of modernisation, one on balance of payments difficulties and one on current plans to deal with the problems of urban growth. Many of these papers present the results of hitherto unpublished research of great importance to students of modern Japan.

Writers and Society in Modern Japan

Writers and Society in Modern Japan PDF Author: Irena Powell
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349050288
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 163

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Book Description


Origins of Modern Japanese Literature

Origins of Modern Japanese Literature PDF Author: Kōjin Karatani
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822313236
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Karatani Kojin is one of Japan's leading critics. In his work as a theoretician, he has described Modernity as have few others; he has re-evaluated the literature of the entire Meiji period and beyond. As one critic has said, Karatani's thought "has had a profound effect on the way we formulate the questions we ask about modern literature and culture ... [his] argument is compelling, moving even, and in the end the reader comes away with a different understanding not only of modern Japanese literature but of modern Japan itself." Among the many authors discussed are Soseki Natsume, Doppo Kunikida, Katai Tayama, and Shoyo Tsubouchi.

Reality and Fiction in Modern Japanese Literature

Reality and Fiction in Modern Japanese Literature PDF Author: Noriko Mizuta Lippit
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351696882
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
This title was first published in 1980. In twentieth century Japanese literature, the opposition and interaction of realism and romanticism on the level of literary concepts, and of Marxism and aestheticism (including, in part, modernism) on the level of literary ideology, supplies a most vital basis for writers searching for new methods of literary expression, fostering debates among the writers and creating the setting for active experimentation with style, form and language. This study is a result of an extended stay in the United States by the author who turned increasingly toward questioning and evaluating my own relation to Japan's literary heritage. For Japanese who have witnessed (at least intellectually) the violent attraction to and rejection of foreign cultures of many of their predecessors in the Meiji, Taisho and Showa eras, and their final, often sentimental and abstract, glorification of the Japanese cultural heritage, nihon kaiki (return to Japan) still presents enormously complex intellectual as well as emotional problems.

Writing Home: Representations of the Native Place in Modern Japanese Literature

Writing Home: Representations of the Native Place in Modern Japanese Literature PDF Author: Stephen Dodd
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 168417404X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
"This book examines the development of Japanese literature depicting the native place (furusato) from the mid-Meiji period through the late 1930s as a way of articulating the uprootedness and sense of loss many experienced as Japan modernized. The 1890s witnessed the appearance of fictional works describing a city dweller who returns to his native place, where he reflects on the evils of urban life and the idyllic past of his childhood home. The book concentrates on four authors who typify this trend: Kunikida Doppo, Shimazaki Tōson, Satō Haruo, and Shiga Naoya. All four writers may be understood as trying to make sense of contemporary Japan. Their works reflect their engagement with the social, intellectual, economic, and technological discourses that created a network of shared experience among people of a similar age. This common experience allows the author to chart how these writers’ works contributed to the general debate over Japanese national identity in this period. By exploring the links between furusato literature and the theme of national identity, he shows that the debate over a common language that might “transparently” express the modern experience helped shape a variety of literary forms used to present the native place as a distinctly Japanese experience."

Modern Japanese Writers and the Nature of Literature

Modern Japanese Writers and the Nature of Literature PDF Author: Makoto Ueda
Publisher: Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804709040
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Art versus nature, the literary work and the author, the literary work and the reader, structure and style, and the purpose of literature are the main subjects treated in a study of eight leading writers of modern Japan

Representing the Other in Modern Japanese Literature

Representing the Other in Modern Japanese Literature PDF Author: Rachael Hutchinson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134233914
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Representing the Other in Modern Japanese Literature looks at the ways in which authors writing in Japanese in the twentieth century constructed a division between the ‘Self’ and the ‘Other’ in their work. Drawing on methodology from Foucault and Lacan, the clearly presented essays seek to show how Japanese writers have responded to the central question of what it means to be ‘Japanese’ and of how best to define their identity. Taking geographical, racial and ethnic identity as a starting point to explore Japan's vision of 'non-Japan', representations of the Other are examined in terms of the experiences of Japanese authors abroad and in the imaginary lands envisioned by authors in Japan. Using a diverse cross-section of writers and texts as case studies, this edited volume brings together contributions from a number of leading international experts in the field and is written at an accessible level, making it essential reading for those working in Japanese studies, colonialism, identity studies and nationalism.

Writing Technology in Meiji Japan

Writing Technology in Meiji Japan PDF Author: Seth Jacobowitz
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684175623
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Writing Technology in Meiji Japan boldly rethinks the origins of modern Japanese language, literature, and visual culture from the perspective of media history. Drawing upon methodological insights by Friedrich Kittler and extensive archival research, Seth Jacobowitz investigates a range of epistemic transformations in the Meiji era (1868–1912), from the rise of communication networks such as telegraph and post to debates over national language and script reform. He documents the changing discursive practices and conceptual constellations that reshaped the verbal, visual, and literary regimes from the Tokugawa era. These changes culminate in the discovery of a new vernacular literary style from the shorthand transcriptions of theatrical storytelling (rakugo) that was subsequently championed by major writers such as Masaoka Shiki and Natsume Sōseki as the basis for a new mode of transparently objective, “transcriptive” realism. The birth of modern Japanese literature is thus located not only in shorthand alone, but within the emergent, multimedia channels that were arriving from the West. This book represents the first systematic study of the ways in which media and inscriptive technologies available in Japan at its threshold of modernization in the late nineteenth to early twentieth century shaped and brought into being modern Japanese literature.