Description
Book SynopsisA critical rethinking of theories of national imagination, this book offers the reading to date in English of one of modern Japan's poets and novelists, Shimazaki Toson (1872-1943). It also reveals how Toson's works influenced the production of a fluid, shifting form of national imagination that has characterized twentieth-century Japan.
Trade Reviewa strikingly original work of remarkable erudition that is also a rigorous theoretical practice...a book that speaks widely to literary and cultural critics and is also a must read for scholars of nationalism and Japanese modernity. -- James A. Fujii The Journal of Asian Studies Bourdaghs's study offers a fascinating interpretation of the major novels of an understudied but enormously interesting literary figure. -- Chia-Ning Chang Monumenta Nipponica His insightful and informative book has deepened our understanding of a highly influential but sadly still neglected Japanese writer...That said, Bourdaghs has certainly opened my eyes to ways of reading Toson I had not considered before, and he is to be thanked for that. -- Stephen Dodd, SOAS, University of London Journal of Japanese Studies In its originality and theoretical sophistication it revolutionizes both the study of Toson and the study of Japanese nationalism. -- Janet A. Walker, Rutgers University Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies
Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Toson, Literary History, and National Imagination 2. The Disease of Nationalism, the Empire of Hygiene: "The Broken Commandment" as Hygiene Manual 3. Triangulating the Nation: Representing and Publishing "The Family" 4. Suicide and Childbirth in the I-Novel: "Women's Literature'" in "Spring" and "New Life" 5. The Times and Spaces of Nations: The Multiple Chronotopes of "Before the Dawn" Epilogue. The Most Japanese of Things
