Literature, Modernity, and the Practice of Resistance

Japanese and Taiwanese Fiction, 1960-1990
Erscheinungsjahr 2007
ISBN: 978-90-04-15478-0
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 11, 362 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 255 mm, Gewicht: 939 g

Reihe: China Studies

This book is a cross-cultural, interdisciplinary study which compares responses to modernity in the literary cultures of Japan and Taiwan, 1960-1990. Moving beyond the East-West framework that has traditionally dominated comparative enquiry, the volume sets out to explore contemporary East Asian literature on its own terms. As such, it belongs to the newly emerging area of inter-Asian cultural studies, but is the first full-length monograph to explore this field through the prism of literature. The book combines close readings of paradigmatic texts with in-depth analysis of the historical, social, and ideological contexts in which these works are situated, and explores the form and function of literary practice within the “miracle” societies of industrialized East Asia.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hillenbrand, Margaret

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturen sonstiger Sprachräume Ost- & Südostasiatische Literatur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements
Introduction
The regional imperative
Interregional, interdisciplinary
Literatures of disenchantment
The outline of the book

Chapter One: The Scope of the Enquiry
Regionalism in practice: cultural convergence in post Cold-War East Asia
Regionalism and ‘alternative modernities’: towards a fruitful intersection
Literary studies and the resistance to regionalism
Contemporary East Asian comparative literature: an embattled discipline
Old-school comparativism: a compromised practice
The theory conundrum: promise and pitfalls
Towards an intraregional comparative practice
The dystopian impulse: roots, targets, and terminology
Western modernism: borrowing and beyond
Japan and Taiwan: the background to comparison
Time-frame, themes, and tropes
Writers

Chapter Two: Rest & Recreation in the City: Dystopian
Visions of US power in Cold War East Asia
US hegemony in Cold War East Asia
The US and its East Asian allies: the background to literary dissent
Triangular paradigms for the geopolitical world
Politics and sexuality: “Leap Before You Look” and the occupation narratives of Ôe Kenzaburô
The past in the present: Nosaka Akiyuki’s “American Hijiki”
Huang Chunming’s Young Widows: Vietnam, R&R, and the entertainment boom
Pimping on the grand scale: Wang Zhenhe’s Rose, Rose, I Love You
Conclusion

Chapter Three: Discord at Home: The Ruptured Family in Postwar Fiction
Transformations in the family: basic themes
Kinship change: the socio-cultural background to literary opposition
The city and sexuality: the circuit of loss and substitution
Wang Wenxing’s “Mother”: modernity, neurosis, and the incest taboo
Paternalism and patriarchy in Bai Xianyong’s Cursed Sons
Tokyo in apocalypse: Murakami Ryû’s Coin Locker Babies
A fake fairytale of the consumer family: Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
Conclusion

Chapter Four: Sex and the City: Commodities of Choice
Consumption in East Asia: general remarks
The cult of consumerism in contemporary East Asia: the socio-economic background to literary opposition
The urban marketplace: city and sexuality
Mishima Yukio’s “The Million Yen”: income-doubling, ‘the three imperial regalia’, and consumption as sexual labor
Journeys through the consumer maze: Murakami Haruki’s Dance, Dance, Dance
Closed circuits of consumption: Dark Nights by Li Ang
KTV city: Zhu Tianwen’s “Red Rose is Paging You”
Conclusion

Conclusion

Glossary
Japanese section
Chinese section

Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Margaret Hillenbrand, D.Phil. (2003), University of Oxford, is Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies. She has published articles on East Asian literature and culture in a range of scholarly journals.