Literature among the Ruins, 1945–1955 : Postwar Japanese Literary Criticism

203 Pages·2018·8.118 MB·English

by  Atsuko Ueda, Michael K. Bourdaghs, Richi Sakakibara and Hirokazu Toeda

Literature among the Ruins,
1945–1955
NEW STUDIES IN MODERN JAPAN
Series Editors: Doug Slaymaker and William M. Tsutsui
New Studies in Modern Japan is a multidisciplinary series that consists primarily
of original studies on a broad spectrum of topics dealing with Japan since the mid-
nineteenth century. Additionally, the series aims to bring back into print classic
works that shed new light on contemporary Japan. The series speaks to cultural
studies (literature, translations, film), history, and social sciences audiences. We
publish compelling works of scholarship, by both established and rising scholars
in the field, on a broad arena of topics, in order to nuance our understandings of
Japan and the Japanese.
Advisory Board
Michael K. Bourdaghs, University of Chicago
Rebecca Copeland, Washington University in St. Louis
Aaron Gerow, Yale University
Yoshikuni Igarashi, Vanderbilt University
Koichi Iwabuchi, Monash University
T. J. Pempel, University of California, Berkeley
Julia Adeney Thomas, University of Notre Dame
Dennis Washburn, Dartmouth College
Merry White, Boston University
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Literature among the Ruins, 1945–1955: Postwar Japanese Literary Criticism, edited
by Atsuko Ueda, Richi Sakakibara, Michael K. Bourdaghs, and Hirokazu Toeda
Literature among the
Ruins, 1945–1955
Postwar Japanese
Literary Criticism
Edited by Atsuko Ueda, Michael
K. Bourdaghs, Richi Sakakibara, and
Hirokazu Toeda
LEXINGTON BOOKS
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction, Atsuko Ueda, Richi Sakakibara, Michael K. Bourdaghs,
and Hirokazu Toeda 1
PART I: FOREGROUNDING THE COLD WAR 15
1 Early Freeze Warning: The Politics and Literature Debate as Cold
War Culture, Michael K. Bourdaghs 17
2 The Korean War and Disputed Memories: Kim Dal-su’s Nihon no
fuyu and the 1955 System, Ko Youngran, translated by Michael
K. Bourdaghs 43
3 Politics and Culture of Fascism, Ann Sherif 61
PART II: STRUCTURES OF CONCEALMENT: CULTURAL
ANXIETIES 89
4 Cultural Resentment and Valorization in Postwar Japanese
Literary Criticism: Nakamura Mitsuo’s Literary History, Atsuko
Ueda 91
5 Small Hopes and a Terror: Katō Shūichi’s and Mori Arimasa’s
1955 Return from France, Doug Slaymaker 105
6 Language and the People: The Amateur Writing Subject in Kindai
bungaku, Shin Nihon bungaku, and Shisō no kagaku, Richi
Sakakibara, translated by Atsuko Ueda 121
v
vi Contents
PART III: CONTINUITY AND
DISCONTINUITY: SUBJECTIVE RUPTURE AND
DISLOCATION 135
7 Temporalities of Ruin: Shiina Rinzō and the Subject of Tenkō,
Seiji M. Lippit 137
8 Literature at War’s End: The Prosecution of Writers in Bungaku
jihyō, James Dorsey 159
9 From the God of Literature to War Criminal: The Media and the
Shifting Image of Yokomitsu Riichi from Prewar and Wartime to
the Postwar Era, Hirokazu Toeda, translated by Atsuko Ueda 177
Index 191
About the Contributors 193
Acknowledgments
It gives us great pleasure to finally thank the many people who were
involved in making this volume possible. In addition to the authors who
have contributed to this volume, many people either informally or formally
assisted in the making of the work through numerous dialogues that took
place in the workshops we conducted, first at Princeton University, then at
Waseda University, and finally at the University of Chicago: Heather Bowen-
Struyk, Richard Calichman, Norma Field, Jonathan Glade, Justin Jesty, Victor
Koschmann, Miho Matsugu, Munakata Kazushige, and Takiguchi Akihiro.
The workshops and publication of this volume received generous support
from many institutions. At Princeton, we thank the East Asian Studies
Program and the East Asian Studies Department, the Council of the
Humanities, and the University Committee on Research in the Humanities
and Social Sciences. At Waseda, we are grateful for support from the Eibun
gakujutsu shuppan josei (Fund for English-language publication support) and
the JSPS KAKENHI Grant number 15K02274 (Grant-in-Aid for Scientific
Research (C), Principal Investigator: Hirokazu Toeda).
At Chicago, we thank the Japan Committee at the Center for East Asian
Studies and the International House.
Special thanks goes to David Boyd, who judiciously went through the
manuscript multiple times and checked for consistency and format. We are
also grateful to Michael Ashby for his excellent copyediting. We thank Doug
Slaymaker for introducing us to Lexington Books. Our gratitude also goes to
Brian Hill, Eric Kuntzman, and others at Lexington Books, who were all ex-
tremely patient with the various delays in the production of this manuscript.
vii

Introduction
Atsuko Ueda, Richi Sakakibara, Michael K.
Bourdaghs, and Hirokazu Toeda
In this volume, we take up the question of postwar literary criticism, with
a basic focus on the “Seiji to bungaku ronsō” (hereafter referred to as the
Politics and Literature Debate) that occurred soon after Japan’s defeat in
World War II.1 The essays here do not limit themselves specifically to
the writings traditionally seen as belonging to the Politics and Literature
Debate but instead use the debates as foci by which to highlight various
ideological forces that shaped the postwar literary scene in which Japanese
intellectuals debated the course of a “new literature.” The commonality of
the issues discussed in the essays is not simply the object of knowledge, in
this case postwar literary discourse. The contributors share various critical
perspectives, which we outline below.
The immediate aftermath of World War II was disruptive in many areas of
people’s lives. Defeat of course signified humiliation to an already poverty-
stricken population. Yet it also signified liberation, not only for the rest of East
Asia from Japan’s colonial rule but also for the many leftist intellectuals who
sought to take the lead in the production of a new literature for postwar Japan.
Many of these intellectuals were, after all, tortured and imprisoned, and some,
even after committing tenkō (conversion), were kept under strict surveillance.
It is important to keep in mind that, until the establishment of North Korea
in 1948 and the People’s Republic of China in 1949, many leftists—perhaps
ironically, in hindsight—considered the American Occupation forces as a
liberation army.
These intellectuals shared many things in common. Many took it as their
responsibility to persecute the literary writers who drove Japan to such a
self-destructive war. They sought to question the role that literary writers
ought to play in the construction of a new Japan and how they failed to
lead the people in the years prior to defeat. They began to reevaluate the
1