Disruptions of Daily Life: Japanese Literary Modernism in the World

Arthur M. Mitchell

Published by Cornell University Press 2022

Disruptions of Daily Life

Japanese Literary Modernism in the World

Arthur M. Mitchell

In the series Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501752933

Overview
Contents

About this book

Disruptions of Daily Life explores the mass media landscape of early twentieth century in order to uncover the subversive societal impact of four major Japanese authors: Tanizaki Jun'ichirō, Yokomitsu Riichi, Kawabata Yasunari, and Hirabayashi Taiko. Arthur Mitchell examines this literature against global realities through a modernist lens, studying an alternative modernism that challenges the Western European model.

Through broad surveys of discussions surrounding Japanese life in the 1920s, Mitchell locates and examines flourishing divergent ideologies of the early twentieth century such as gender, ethnicity, and nationalism. He unravels how the narrative and linguistic strategies of modernist texts interrogated the innocence of this language, disrupting their hold on people's imagined relationship to daily life. These modernist works often discursively displaced the authority of their own claims by inadvertently exposing the global epistemology of East vs. West. Mitchell's reading of these formalist texts expands modernism studies into a more translational dialogue by locating subversions within the local historical culture and allowing readers to make connections to the time and place in which the texts were written.

In highlighting the unbreakable link between literature and society, Disruptions of Daily Life reaffirms the value of modernist fiction and its ability to make us aware of how realities are constructed—and how those realities can be changed.

Author / Editor information

Arthur Mitchell is Assistant Professor at Macalester College.

Reviews

Rebecca Copeland, Professor of Japanese Literature, Washington University, St. Louis:

Disruptions of Daily Life is a richly resourced study of literary modernism that adds new dimensions to our understanding of late Taishō and interwar-era literature. In particular, Arthur Mitchell's focus on "daily life" and innovations in linguistic style is fascinating and augments previous studies on literary modernism in Japan. A strength of this study is the careful way in which Mitchell integrates literary, social, historical, and journalistic sources from both Japanese and English-language scholarship. This weave of information provides rich contexts for the close readings of the selected texts.

Disruptions of Daily Life is a lucid and insightful contribution to the growing scholarship on Japanese modernism.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction: Shattering the Status Quo: Reading Modernism in the Early Twentieth Century Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Fetishism of the West in Tanizaki Jun’ichiro¯’s A Fool’s Love Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	52
2. Subversions of Ethnicity in Yokomitsu Riichi’s Neo-Sensationist Writings Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	100
3. Kawabata Yasunari’s The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa and the Narrative of the Present Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	154
4. “Love” and (Male) Subjectivity in Hirabayashi Taiko’s “In the Charity Ward” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	192
Coda: Against the National Literary Narrative Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	238
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	249
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	255

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 276
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 9
- Images: 4
- Coloured Images: 3
- Tables: 2
- Other: 4 b&w halftones, 3 color halftones, 2 charts
Keywords: Tanizaki Jun’ichirō; Yokomitsu Riichi; Kawabata Yasunari; Hirabayashi Taiko

eBook

Published: October 15, 2020
ISBN: 9781501752933