Texts of the Heisei Era
Readings of Contemporary Japanese Literature
1st Edition
Published on 4. December 2025
VI, 148 pages
978-3-11-221292-9 (ISBN)
Description
This volume with contributions on the literature of the Heisei era (1989-2019) contains analyses of contemporary Japanese literature. It presents authors such as Shimada Masahiko, Abe Kazushige, Tawada Yôko and Shôno Yoriko, who use sophisticated, self-reflective language and subversive arguments against systems of power to criticize the times in the context of the question of national identity and transculturality.
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Lisette Gebhardt | Christian Chappelow
Texts of the Heisei Era
Readings of Contemporary Japanese Literature
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12/2025
1st Edition
De Gruyter
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Lisette Gebhardt | Christian Chappelow
Texts of the Heisei Era
Readings of Contemporary Japanese Literature
Book
12/2025
1st Edition
De Gruyter
€99.95
Shipment within 5-7 days
Persons
Lisette Gebhardt
, Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt a.M.;
Christian Chappelow
, Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt a.M.
Content
- Intro
- Foreword
- Contents
- War Memory and the Emperor: Late-Work Poetry by Wakamatsu Jotaro (1935-2021)
- 1 Introduction: Warnings of a post-war author
- 2 Critical perspectives on the Japanese present - Generationality and regionality in a contemporary Japanese literature
- 3 Zeitenwende - Texts for a post-democratic Japan?
- 4 After the war is before the war? Pacifist poems in times of remilitarization
- 5 The symbolic figure of the emperor
- 6 Final thoughts
- 7 Interview with Wakamatsu Jotaro
- Bibliography
- Japanese "Masochism" in the Literature of Shimada Masahiko
- 1 The topic of Japanese subjectivity in Shimada's fiction
- 2 A short history of cultural masochism within Japanese literature
- 3 Political masochism and symbolic castration in Japanese-US relations
- 4 The double bind of nationalism
- 5 Symbolic castration and sophisticated masochism
- 6 Symbolic castration and a global Japan
- 7 Conclusion
- Bibliography
- The Challenges of Ribi Hideo's Border-Crossing Writing: The "Alley" (roji) in China
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Mapping criticisms of Japanese border-crossing literature
- 3 Writing about China in Japanese
- 4 Discovering the "own home at the end of alleys"
- 5 Manshu ekusupuresu or "home to go back to"
- 6 Henri Takeshi Rewitsuki no natsu no kiko or the indefinable identity
- 7 Gaze or in search for the "own home" that does not exist anymore
- 8 Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Dissecting Social Malaise in Literature: Abe Kazushige's Textual Interplay with the Heisei Era
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Sketching contemporary social malaise in Japan
- 3 The literature of social malaise
- 4 Abe Kazushige: Fantasies of power
- 5 Nipponia Nippon: Isolation and obsession
- 6 Conclusions
- Bibliography
- Shono Yoriko: Literature as a Battlefield
- 1 The writer and her means of struggle. From "nameless" to "heretical" writer of pure literature
- 2 The urge for pure literature
- 3 Preserving women's sanctuary
- 4 Instead of a conclusion
- Bibliography
- The State as the Enemy: Kurokawa So's Iwaba no ue kara - Subversive Citizens in the Post-Fukushima mirai shosetsu and the Japanese Political Entertainment Literature
- 1 A short exploration of Heisei literature
- The main causes for the situation can be summarized in four parts
- 2 Kurokawa So: A little-known author and the post-Fukushima mirai shosetsu
- 3 A regime and its power games: War, nuclear waste, technospheres
- 4 Civil resistance: A political lesson
- 5 Criticism of the state and the freedom of expression
- 6 Subversive entertainment: A different Japanese literature?
- Bibliography
- About the Contributors
- Name Index
- Subject Index
