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- Convenor:
-
Pieter Van Lommel
(University of Tsukuba)
Send message to Convenor
- Chair:
-
Yukari Yoshihara
(University of Tsukuba)
- Discussant:
-
Yukari Yoshihara
(University of Tsukuba)
- Stream:
- Modern Literature
- Location:
- Torre A, Piso -1, Auditório 001
- Sessions:
- Thursday 31 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
This panel investigates the role modern Japanese literature played as an alternative form of education from Meiji to Shōwa by exploring various ways in which 'pure' literature, school readers and farmers' drama each targeted specific readerships and complemented or contradicted official education.
Long Abstract:
The close relationship between literature and education constitutes one crucial aspect of investigation when trying to elucidate the social and political role of modern literature in Japan. From Meiji until Shōwa, modern Japanese literature's form and function developed to a great extent in tandem with the establishment and expansion of modern school education. As literacy spread, new groups of readers became the target of literature, changing its style, content and educational goals. At the same time, literature was gradually recognized as a didactic tool in official education, which resulted in the incorporation of literary works not only in government-approved textbooks but also in commercially published supplementary readers. In sum, it could be said that literature often acted as a type of 'alternative' education, complementing or contradicting official school education and stimulating new readerships such as teachers, youths and farmers in various ways. This entanglement of literature and education forms an insufficiently covered area of literary research, partly due to scholars of education shying away from literary analyses, partly since scholars of literature still tend to make a clear distinction between the realms of 'moralistic' education and literature as 'art'. However, a full understanding of the social and political meaning of literature requires a comprehensive study of the intricate interaction between both domains.
This panel sets out to clarify the close and complex link between literature and education through three case studies, each discussing one peculiar episode in Japanese history where literature developed or was used in hopes of educating a specific readership. Covering Meiji, Taishō and Shōwa, and tackling 'pure' literature, school readers and farmers' drama, the three presentations each provide a unique approach to highlight the multifaceted social and political workings of modern Japanese literature as a form of non-official education.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 31 August, 2017, -Pieter Van Lommel (University of Tsukuba)
Paper short abstract:
This paper presents an ideological analysis of Tayama Katai's novel Inaka Kyoshi from the point of view of the country teacher in late Meiji. Drawing on contemporary sources such as novels written for teachers and a teacher's diary, Katai's critical stance as well as its limitations are discussed.
Paper long abstract:
In his famous novel Inaka Kyōshi (『田舎教師』, The Country Teacher), published in 1909, Tayama Katai depicts a young, romantic middle school graduate who dreams of higher education in Tokyo and becoming a successful author but, due to economic and familial circumstances, has to take up a job as a teacher in a provincial elementary school. Much scholarly attention has gone to the so-called heimen byōsha, the impressionist style of this naturalist novel which depicts small human action against the larger backdrop of indifferent nature. However, the ideological position of this work is less clear, with scholars having inconsistently pointed out both its latent support, and its criticism of unbridled capitalism, nationalism and imperialism.
This paper analyses Inaka Kyōshi from the point of view of the country teacher in late Meiji questioning the concrete meaning this novel had for the teachers at the time. A comparison of Inaka Kyōshi with contemporary novels specifically written for teachers, and with the diary by the elementary school teacher Kobayashi Shuzo, which Katai used as the main source for his story, reveals a deliberate critical stance towards official expansionist Meiji policy and the supportive role elementary education played in spreading the underlying ideology. However, it also shows that Katai's portrayal of 'the country teacher' is a heavily distorted one, a caricature not necessarily representative of the actual teachers at the time. While arguing that Katai's naturalism was more than stylistics and had an important ideological agenda of raising a critical social awareness among his readers, this paper also clarifies that his Tokyo-based perspective and one-sided depiction of education left no room for the suggestion of an alternative, eventually leaving his readers in the periphery with the only option to keep dreaming of a way out of the country.
Irina Holca (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)
Paper short abstract:
This paper analyses the role played by some of Shimazaki Tōson's works in shaping the periphery of the "kokugo" and "bungaku" education, while shedding light on the way other peripheries, such as the Japanese countryside, the colonies, and the world outside Japan, are represented therein.
Paper long abstract:
In this presentation, I focus on the roles that romantic poet-turned- naturalist novelist Shimazaki Tōson was assigned, or assumed himself, in bringing together modern Japanese literature and education in the Taishō and early Shōwa periods. I begin with an analysis of the meaning behind the inclusion of Tōson's poems, and later prose, in the kokugo (national language) textbooks, and attempt to trace the impact such texts had on defining the shifting boundaries of (modern) Japanese language and literature for young learners. Next, I intend to look at the supplementary reader Tōson Tokuhon (1925-26), which consists of a wide array of fairy tales, poems, translations, and essays written and compiled by Tōson himself, and in which special attention is paid to introducing faraway lands as well as their languages and cultures, but also to describing the nature and local dialects of countryside Japan. For comparison, I will also refer to other extracurricular readers, compiled by literati such as Akutagawa Ryūnosuke (Nihon kindai bungei tokuhon, 1925) and Kikuchi Kan (Shōgaku dōwa tokuhon, 1925) around the same time. In examining these works, I argue that they are central in shaping the very important "periphery" of the kokugo and bungaku education, while also attempting to shed light on how other peripheries, such as the Japanese countryside, the colonies, and the world outside Japan, are represented therein.
Akiyo Suzuki (Kanazawa University)
Paper short abstract:
In this paper, I analyze drama composed for peasants in early Showa, focusing on the relationship between the theory put forth by Nakamura Seiko and others and the agricultural policy of the same era. The features and limitations of peasant drama as an educational tool are discussed.
Paper long abstract:
Spanning the late Taishō and Shōwa eras, the Peasant Literature Research Society (subsequently known as the Peasant Literature Society) was established by people like Inuta Shigeru, Nakamura Seiko, and Yoshie Takamatsu, as they created a Peasant Literature Movement around the society's journal, Farmers. The movement promoted 'amateur' peasant theatre, where scripts were written by farmers and for farmers, and where farmers acted out farmer characters before a farmer audience. It was argued that such activities served to 'educate' the farmers. Foreign plays from Ireland and elsewhere were staged at such peasant theatres, too.
The Wakaba Group (Ukiha County, Fukuoka Prefecture) garnered attention as illustrative of the Peasant Literature Movement. Under the leadership of Nakamura Seiko, this group came to stage both plays selected for their peasant character and original plays written by the peasants themselves. Yet, before being 'discovered' by Nakamura and the other members of the Peasant Literature Society and receiving 'education' about the concept of 'peasant literature', the Wakaba Group had never seen itself as acting out 'farmers'. Rather, they had been striving for the standard of contemporary highly artistic theatre, taking inspiration from the Tsukiji Little Theatre. Nonetheless, having been identified as a prime example of peasant theatre, the Group came to devote itself wholly to the acting out of 'farmers'. With time, the repertoire of peasant plays grew, additional theatres were established around the country, and the journal Farmers published stories about successful peasant theatres. The aim of this presentation is to elucidate how making members of peasant theatres act out 'farmer' roles was essential in the creation of the category 'farmer' and the dissemination of the Peasant Literature Movement's ideology.