EALC 303: Writing Empire (HC/BMC) Spring 2022

This is a one-volume guide to the modern literatures of China, Japan, and Korea with more than one hundred articles about authors and literary movements. Note that there are brief essays about Akutagawa Ryunosuke, Hayashi Fumiko, and Abe Kobo.

Features essay-length overviews on different periods in Japanese history as well as essays on major themes including "Popular Culture", "Postwar Society and Culture" and "Gender and Sexuality in Modern Japan".

Offering extensive coverage, this book surveys the culture of modern Japan, spanning from the end of the Japanese Imperialist period in 1945 to the present day. Entries cover areas including literature, film, architecture, political economy, religion and technology.

This book presents a broad perspective on the development and history of literature- narrative, poetry, and drama- in modern Japan. It focuses specifically on the years since 1868. It offers both a historical overview through its chronology, introduction, bibliography, and over 400 cross-referenced dictionary entries.

Featuring choice selections from the core anthologies The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From Restoration to Occupation, 1868-1945, and The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From 1945 to the Present, this collection offers a concise yet remarkably rich introduction to the fiction, poetry, drama, and essays of Japan's modern encounter with the West. Spanning a period of exceptional invention and transition, this volume is not only a critical companion to courses on Japanese literary and intellectual development but also an essential reference for scholarship on Japanese history, culture, and interactions with the East and West. The first half covers the three major styles of literary expression that informed Japanese writing and performance in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: classical Japanese fiction and drama, Chinese poetry, and Western literary representation and cultural critique. Their juxtaposition brilliantly captures the social, intellectual, and political challenges shaping Japan during this period, particularly the rise of nationalism, the complex interaction between traditional and modern forces, and the encroachment of Western ideas and writing. The second half conveys the changes that have transformed Japan since the end of the Pacific War, such as the heady transition from poverty to prosperity, the friction between conflicting ideologies and political beliefs, and the growing influence of popular culture on the country's artistic and intellectual traditions. Featuring sensitive translations of works by Nagai Kafu, Natsume Soseki, Oe Kenzaburo, Kawabata Yasunari, Mishima Yukio, and many others, this anthology relates an essential portrait of Japan's dynamic modernization.