Author: Takayuki Yokota-Murakami
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9811085129
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 192
Book Description
This book examines how early research on literary activities outside national literatures such as émigré literature or diasporic literature conceived of the loss of ‘mother-tongue” as a tragedy, and how it perpetuated the ideology of national language by relying on the dichotomy of native language/foreign language. It transcends these limitations by examining modern Japanese literature and literary criticism through modern philology, the vernacularization movement, and Korean-Japanese literature. Through the insights of recent philosophical/linguistic theories, it reveals the political problems of the notion of “mother-tongue” in literary and linguistic theories and proposes strategies to realize genuinely “exophonic” and “translational” literature beyond the confines of nation. Examining the notion of “mother-tongue” in literature and literary criticism, the author deconstructs the concept and language itself as an apparatus of nation-state in order to imagine alternative literature, genuinely creolized and heterogeneous. Offering a comparative, transnational perspective on the significance of the mother tongue in contemporary literatures, this is a key read for students of modern Japanese literature, language and culture, as well as those interested in theories of translation and bilingualism.
Mother-Tongue in Modern Japanese Literature and Criticism
Author: Takayuki Yokota-Murakami
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9811085129
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 192
Book Description
This book examines how early research on literary activities outside national literatures such as émigré literature or diasporic literature conceived of the loss of ‘mother-tongue” as a tragedy, and how it perpetuated the ideology of national language by relying on the dichotomy of native language/foreign language. It transcends these limitations by examining modern Japanese literature and literary criticism through modern philology, the vernacularization movement, and Korean-Japanese literature. Through the insights of recent philosophical/linguistic theories, it reveals the political problems of the notion of “mother-tongue” in literary and linguistic theories and proposes strategies to realize genuinely “exophonic” and “translational” literature beyond the confines of nation. Examining the notion of “mother-tongue” in literature and literary criticism, the author deconstructs the concept and language itself as an apparatus of nation-state in order to imagine alternative literature, genuinely creolized and heterogeneous. Offering a comparative, transnational perspective on the significance of the mother tongue in contemporary literatures, this is a key read for students of modern Japanese literature, language and culture, as well as those interested in theories of translation and bilingualism.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9811085129
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 192
Book Description
This book examines how early research on literary activities outside national literatures such as émigré literature or diasporic literature conceived of the loss of ‘mother-tongue” as a tragedy, and how it perpetuated the ideology of national language by relying on the dichotomy of native language/foreign language. It transcends these limitations by examining modern Japanese literature and literary criticism through modern philology, the vernacularization movement, and Korean-Japanese literature. Through the insights of recent philosophical/linguistic theories, it reveals the political problems of the notion of “mother-tongue” in literary and linguistic theories and proposes strategies to realize genuinely “exophonic” and “translational” literature beyond the confines of nation. Examining the notion of “mother-tongue” in literature and literary criticism, the author deconstructs the concept and language itself as an apparatus of nation-state in order to imagine alternative literature, genuinely creolized and heterogeneous. Offering a comparative, transnational perspective on the significance of the mother tongue in contemporary literatures, this is a key read for students of modern Japanese literature, language and culture, as well as those interested in theories of translation and bilingualism.
Teaching Postwar Japanese Fiction
Author: Alex Bates
Publisher: Modern Language Association
ISBN: 160329595X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 199
Book Description
As Japan moved from the devastation of 1945 to the economic security that survived even the boom and bust of the 1980s and 1990s, its literature came to embrace new subjects and styles and to reflect on the nation's changing relationship to other Asian countries and to the West. This volume will help instructors introduce students to novels, short stories, and manga that confront postwar Japanese experiences, including the suffering caused by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the echoes of Japan's colonialism and imperialism, new ways of thinking about Japanese identity and about minorities such as the zainichi Koreans, changes in family structures, and environmental disasters. Essays provide context for understanding the particularity of postwar Japanese literature, its place in world literature, and its connections to the Japanese past.
Publisher: Modern Language Association
ISBN: 160329595X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 199
Book Description
As Japan moved from the devastation of 1945 to the economic security that survived even the boom and bust of the 1980s and 1990s, its literature came to embrace new subjects and styles and to reflect on the nation's changing relationship to other Asian countries and to the West. This volume will help instructors introduce students to novels, short stories, and manga that confront postwar Japanese experiences, including the suffering caused by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the echoes of Japan's colonialism and imperialism, new ways of thinking about Japanese identity and about minorities such as the zainichi Koreans, changes in family structures, and environmental disasters. Essays provide context for understanding the particularity of postwar Japanese literature, its place in world literature, and its connections to the Japanese past.
Tawada Yoko
Author: Doug Slaymaker
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498590055
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 297
Book Description
This collection draws from scholars across different languages to address and assess the scholarly achievements of Tawada Yōko. Yōko, born in Japan (1960) and based in Germany, writes and presents in both German and Japanese. The contributors of this volume recognize her as one of the most important contemporary international writers. Her published books alone number more than fifty volumes, with roughly the same number in German and Japanese. Tawada’s writing unfolds at the intersections of borders, whether of language, identity, nationality, or gender. Her characters are all travelers of some sort, often foreigners and outsiders, caught in surreal in-between spaces, such as between language and culture, or between species, subjectivities, and identities. Sometimes they exist in the spaces between gendered and national identities; sometimes they are found caught between reality and the surreal, perhaps madness. Tawada has been one of the most prescient and provocative thinkers on the complexities of travelling and living in the contemporary world, and thus has always been obsessed with passports and trouble at borders. This current volume was conceived to augment the first edited volume of Tawada’s work, Yōko Tawada: Voices from Everywhere, which appeared from Lexington Books in 2007. That volume represented the first extensive English language coverage of Tawada’s writing. In the meantime, there is increased scholarly interest in Tawada’s artistic activity, and it is time for more sustained critical examinations of her output. This collection gathers and analyzes essays that approach the complex international themes found in many of Tawada’s works.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498590055
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 297
Book Description
This collection draws from scholars across different languages to address and assess the scholarly achievements of Tawada Yōko. Yōko, born in Japan (1960) and based in Germany, writes and presents in both German and Japanese. The contributors of this volume recognize her as one of the most important contemporary international writers. Her published books alone number more than fifty volumes, with roughly the same number in German and Japanese. Tawada’s writing unfolds at the intersections of borders, whether of language, identity, nationality, or gender. Her characters are all travelers of some sort, often foreigners and outsiders, caught in surreal in-between spaces, such as between language and culture, or between species, subjectivities, and identities. Sometimes they exist in the spaces between gendered and national identities; sometimes they are found caught between reality and the surreal, perhaps madness. Tawada has been one of the most prescient and provocative thinkers on the complexities of travelling and living in the contemporary world, and thus has always been obsessed with passports and trouble at borders. This current volume was conceived to augment the first edited volume of Tawada’s work, Yōko Tawada: Voices from Everywhere, which appeared from Lexington Books in 2007. That volume represented the first extensive English language coverage of Tawada’s writing. In the meantime, there is increased scholarly interest in Tawada’s artistic activity, and it is time for more sustained critical examinations of her output. This collection gathers and analyzes essays that approach the complex international themes found in many of Tawada’s works.
The Fall of Language in the Age of English
Author: Minae Mizumura
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231538545
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 237
Book Description
Winner of the Kobayashi Hideo Award, The Fall of Language in the Age of English lays bare the struggle to retain the brilliance of one's own language in this period of English-language dominance. Born in Tokyo but raised and educated in the United States, Minae Mizumura acknowledges the value of a universal language in the pursuit of knowledge yet also embraces the different ways of understanding offered by multiple tongues. She warns against losing this precious diversity. Universal languages have always played a pivotal role in advancing human societies, Mizumura shows, but in the globalized world of the Internet, English is fast becoming the sole common language of humanity. The process is unstoppable, and striving for total language equality is delusional—and yet, particular kinds of knowledge can be gained only through writings in specific languages. Mizumura calls these writings "texts" and their ultimate form "literature." Only through literature and, more fundamentally, through the diverse languages that give birth to a variety of literatures, can we nurture and enrich humanity. Incorporating her own experiences as a writer and a lover of language and embedding a parallel history of Japanese, Mizumura offers an intimate look at the phenomena of individual and national expression.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231538545
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 237
Book Description
Winner of the Kobayashi Hideo Award, The Fall of Language in the Age of English lays bare the struggle to retain the brilliance of one's own language in this period of English-language dominance. Born in Tokyo but raised and educated in the United States, Minae Mizumura acknowledges the value of a universal language in the pursuit of knowledge yet also embraces the different ways of understanding offered by multiple tongues. She warns against losing this precious diversity. Universal languages have always played a pivotal role in advancing human societies, Mizumura shows, but in the globalized world of the Internet, English is fast becoming the sole common language of humanity. The process is unstoppable, and striving for total language equality is delusional—and yet, particular kinds of knowledge can be gained only through writings in specific languages. Mizumura calls these writings "texts" and their ultimate form "literature." Only through literature and, more fundamentally, through the diverse languages that give birth to a variety of literatures, can we nurture and enrich humanity. Incorporating her own experiences as a writer and a lover of language and embedding a parallel history of Japanese, Mizumura offers an intimate look at the phenomena of individual and national expression.
Literature After Fukushima
Author: Linda Flores
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000836282
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 199
Book Description
Literature after Fukushima examines how aesthetic representation contributes to a critical understanding of the 3.11 triple disaster – the Great East Japan earthquake, tsunami, and multiple meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Through an examination of key works in the expanding corpus of 3.11 literature the book explores how the disaster—both its immediate aftereffects and its continued unfolding—reframed discourse in various areas such as trauma studies, eco-criticism, regional identity, food safety, civil society, and beyond. Individual chapters discuss aspects of these perspectival shifts, tracing the reshaping of Japanese identity after the triple disaster. The cultural productions explored offer a glimpse into the public imaginary and demonstrate how disasters can fundamentally redefine our individual and shared conception of both history and the present moment. Literature after Fukushima is the first English-language book to provide an in-depth analysis of such a wide range of representative post-3.11 literature and its social ramifications. Contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of the post-disaster climate of Japanese society and adding new perspectives through literary analysis, this book will be of interest to scholars and students of Japanese and Asian Studies, Literary Studies, Environmental Humanities, as well as Cultural and Transcultural Studies.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000836282
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 199
Book Description
Literature after Fukushima examines how aesthetic representation contributes to a critical understanding of the 3.11 triple disaster – the Great East Japan earthquake, tsunami, and multiple meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Through an examination of key works in the expanding corpus of 3.11 literature the book explores how the disaster—both its immediate aftereffects and its continued unfolding—reframed discourse in various areas such as trauma studies, eco-criticism, regional identity, food safety, civil society, and beyond. Individual chapters discuss aspects of these perspectival shifts, tracing the reshaping of Japanese identity after the triple disaster. The cultural productions explored offer a glimpse into the public imaginary and demonstrate how disasters can fundamentally redefine our individual and shared conception of both history and the present moment. Literature after Fukushima is the first English-language book to provide an in-depth analysis of such a wide range of representative post-3.11 literature and its social ramifications. Contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of the post-disaster climate of Japanese society and adding new perspectives through literary analysis, this book will be of interest to scholars and students of Japanese and Asian Studies, Literary Studies, Environmental Humanities, as well as Cultural and Transcultural Studies.
Literary Multilingualism in the Borderlands
Author: Marianna Deganutti
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000910490
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
This book focuses on literary multilingualism and specifically on the challenging condition of writing in Trieste, a key European borderland located at the intersection between the Latin, Germanic and Slav civilisations. By focusing on some of the most representative modern writers operating in the area, such as Italo Svevo, Boris Pahor, Claudio Magris and James Joyce, this work offers a wide-ranging discussion of multilingual practices deriving from the different language choices made by these writers. Along with the most common manifest strategies, such as code-switching and hybridisations, Deganutti highlights how Triestine writers found innovative latent practices to engage with multilingualism, such as writing in an analogical way or exploiting internal linguistic stratifications. Moreover, she shows how they provided answers to the several linguistic, cultural and even political challenges they were subjected to, with the result of redefining linguistic boundaries that clearly separate different tongues. This book will be of interest to graduate students, researchers and academics interested in literary multilingualism in the fields of sociolinguistics, borderland studies and comparative literature.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000910490
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
This book focuses on literary multilingualism and specifically on the challenging condition of writing in Trieste, a key European borderland located at the intersection between the Latin, Germanic and Slav civilisations. By focusing on some of the most representative modern writers operating in the area, such as Italo Svevo, Boris Pahor, Claudio Magris and James Joyce, this work offers a wide-ranging discussion of multilingual practices deriving from the different language choices made by these writers. Along with the most common manifest strategies, such as code-switching and hybridisations, Deganutti highlights how Triestine writers found innovative latent practices to engage with multilingualism, such as writing in an analogical way or exploiting internal linguistic stratifications. Moreover, she shows how they provided answers to the several linguistic, cultural and even political challenges they were subjected to, with the result of redefining linguistic boundaries that clearly separate different tongues. This book will be of interest to graduate students, researchers and academics interested in literary multilingualism in the fields of sociolinguistics, borderland studies and comparative literature.
Deconstructing Nationality
Author: Naoki Sakai
Publisher: Cornell East Asia Series
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
How can a post-national Japanese Studies be defined? How might the postwar myth of a monoethnic Japan be historicized? Can new forms of nationalism be effectively criticized by evoking a spirit of nationalist democracy? This book contains a series of groundbreaking essays by major Japanese and American scholars seeking to locate "Japan" beyond the geographical and ideological boundaries established post-1945 and under the Cold War. Included are essays on such iconic cultural figures as Maruyama Masao and Takamura Kōtarō; on the impact of colonialism on prewar theories of race, language, and multi-culturalism; on gender and nationalism; on the critique of culturalist notions of the "native speaker" and "mother tongue," and on Asian nationalisms in the era of globalization.
Publisher: Cornell East Asia Series
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
How can a post-national Japanese Studies be defined? How might the postwar myth of a monoethnic Japan be historicized? Can new forms of nationalism be effectively criticized by evoking a spirit of nationalist democracy? This book contains a series of groundbreaking essays by major Japanese and American scholars seeking to locate "Japan" beyond the geographical and ideological boundaries established post-1945 and under the Cold War. Included are essays on such iconic cultural figures as Maruyama Masao and Takamura Kōtarō; on the impact of colonialism on prewar theories of race, language, and multi-culturalism; on gender and nationalism; on the critique of culturalist notions of the "native speaker" and "mother tongue," and on Asian nationalisms in the era of globalization.
Routledge Handbook of Modern Japanese Literature
Author: Rachael Hutchinson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317647726
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 364
Book Description
The Routledge Handbook of Modern Japanese Literature provides a comprehensive overview of how we study Japanese literature today. Rather than taking a purely chronological approach to the content, the chapters survey the state of the field through a number of pressing issues and themes, examining the ways in which it is possible to read modern Japanese literature and situate it in relation to critical theory. The Handbook examines various modes of literary production (such as fiction, poetry, and critical essays) as distinct forms of expression that nonetheless are closely interrelated. Attention is drawn to the idea of the bunjin as a ‘person of letters’ and a more realistic assessment is provided of how writers have engaged with ideas – not labelled a ‘novelist’ or ‘poet’, but a ‘writer’ who may at one time or another choose to write in various forms. The book provides an overview of major authors and genres by situating them within broader themes that have defined the way writers have produced literature in modern Japan, as well as how those works have been read and understood by different readers in different time periods. The Routledge Handbook of Modern Japanese Literature draws from an international array of established experts in the field as well as promising young researchers. It represents a wide variety of critical approaches, giving the study a broad range of perspectives. This handbook will be of interest to students and scholars of Asian Studies, Literature, Sociology, Critical Theory, and History.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317647726
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 364
Book Description
The Routledge Handbook of Modern Japanese Literature provides a comprehensive overview of how we study Japanese literature today. Rather than taking a purely chronological approach to the content, the chapters survey the state of the field through a number of pressing issues and themes, examining the ways in which it is possible to read modern Japanese literature and situate it in relation to critical theory. The Handbook examines various modes of literary production (such as fiction, poetry, and critical essays) as distinct forms of expression that nonetheless are closely interrelated. Attention is drawn to the idea of the bunjin as a ‘person of letters’ and a more realistic assessment is provided of how writers have engaged with ideas – not labelled a ‘novelist’ or ‘poet’, but a ‘writer’ who may at one time or another choose to write in various forms. The book provides an overview of major authors and genres by situating them within broader themes that have defined the way writers have produced literature in modern Japan, as well as how those works have been read and understood by different readers in different time periods. The Routledge Handbook of Modern Japanese Literature draws from an international array of established experts in the field as well as promising young researchers. It represents a wide variety of critical approaches, giving the study a broad range of perspectives. This handbook will be of interest to students and scholars of Asian Studies, Literature, Sociology, Critical Theory, and History.
Inheritance from Mother
Author: Minae Mizumura
Publisher: Other Press, LLC
ISBN: 1590517830
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 465
Book Description
A “must-read . . . gorgeous and intimate” novel that demystifies the idea of the selfless Japanese mother and the adult daughter honor-bound to care for her (Washington Post) Mitsuki Katsura, a Japanese woman in her mid-50s, is a French-language instructor at a private university in Tokyo. Her husband, whom she met in Paris, is a professor at another private university. He is having an affair with a much younger woman. In addition to her husband’s infidelity, Mitsuki must deal with her ailing 80-something mother, a demanding, self-absorbed woman who is far from the image of the patient, self-sacrificing Japanese matriarch. Mitsuki finds herself dreaming of the day when her mother will finally pass on. While doing everything she can to ensure her mother’s happiness, she grows weary of the responsibilities of a doting daughter and worries she is sacrificing her chance to find fulfillment in her middle age. Inheritance from Mother not only offers insight into a complex and paradoxical culture, but is also a profound work about mothers and daughters, marriage, old age, and the resilience of women.
Publisher: Other Press, LLC
ISBN: 1590517830
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 465
Book Description
A “must-read . . . gorgeous and intimate” novel that demystifies the idea of the selfless Japanese mother and the adult daughter honor-bound to care for her (Washington Post) Mitsuki Katsura, a Japanese woman in her mid-50s, is a French-language instructor at a private university in Tokyo. Her husband, whom she met in Paris, is a professor at another private university. He is having an affair with a much younger woman. In addition to her husband’s infidelity, Mitsuki must deal with her ailing 80-something mother, a demanding, self-absorbed woman who is far from the image of the patient, self-sacrificing Japanese matriarch. Mitsuki finds herself dreaming of the day when her mother will finally pass on. While doing everything she can to ensure her mother’s happiness, she grows weary of the responsibilities of a doting daughter and worries she is sacrificing her chance to find fulfillment in her middle age. Inheritance from Mother not only offers insight into a complex and paradoxical culture, but is also a profound work about mothers and daughters, marriage, old age, and the resilience of women.
Beyond the Mother Tongue
Author: Yasemin Yildiz
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 0823241300
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
Monolingualism-the idea that having just one language is the norm is only a recent invention, dating to late-eighteenth-century Europe. Yet it has become a dominant, if overlooked, structuring principle of modernity. According to this monolingual paradigm, individuals are imagined to be able to think and feel properly only in one language, while multiple languages are seen as a threat to the cohesion of individuals and communities, institutions and disciplines. As a result of this view, writing in anything but one's "mother tongue" has come to be seen as an aberration.
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 0823241300
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
Monolingualism-the idea that having just one language is the norm is only a recent invention, dating to late-eighteenth-century Europe. Yet it has become a dominant, if overlooked, structuring principle of modernity. According to this monolingual paradigm, individuals are imagined to be able to think and feel properly only in one language, while multiple languages are seen as a threat to the cohesion of individuals and communities, institutions and disciplines. As a result of this view, writing in anything but one's "mother tongue" has come to be seen as an aberration.