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- Convenor:
-
Aaron Moore
(University of Edinburgh)
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- Stream:
- History
- Location:
- Bloco 1, Piso 0, Sala 0.09
- Sessions:
- Thursday 31 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
Panelists will discuss the evolution of Japanese future writing from 1905 to 1991, covering nearly a century of historical speculation of the 'world to come'. We focus on descriptions of the human body to illuminate changing historical discourses on social relations, political power, and war.
Long Abstract:
From the end of the Meiji Period, Japanese writers, in both fiction and non-fiction, have presented visions of the future that echoed concerns of the present. This panel will focus in particular on how discussions of the body served as spaces for authors to publicly ruminate about the direction of the nation, the consequences of war, dys/utopic social relations, and the quandaries of the modern self.
First, Aaron William Moore will discuss how the pursuit of empire encouraged engagement with British adventure fiction and reportage after the Russo-Japanese War. Japanese authors began to discuss the possibility of non-human sentient life, radical evolution of the human body, and future wars that would utterly transform the social, political, and economic order on planet Earth. Seth Jacobowitz's paper investigates conceptions of artificial human being and robots in the literature and thought of Unno Juza (1897-1949) and Hirabayashi Hatsunosuke (1892-1931) contextualized by the politics of mass culture in 1920s-1930s Japan. Jacobowitz will show how anxieties about empire, science, and total war suffused discourses of the future by examining Unno and Hirabayashi's use of the 'man-made man' (jinzō ningen) trope that circulated widely at this time. John Treat will then discuss how the discursive landscape changed in post-war, post-nuclear Japan by analysing Numa Shōzō's multivolume scifi novel Human Cattle Yapoo (Kachikujin Yapū, 1956-91), which was hailed by Tatsumi Takayuki as Japan's most important literary work since 1945. He will argue that the work is a precursor of current speculative writing imagining a post-human future, one in which Japanese serve as living commodes, sex machines, clothing, furniture, door mats, and even meals.
In many cases, the authors of future speculation reached out to military authorities, town planners, and political leaders, to help facilitate (or avoid) the realisation of their visions of the world to come. They also engaged with the public, influencing discourse on foreign relations, views of the body, and individual rights. The critical analysis of future writing, as a kind of discursive archaeology, is therefore a concern for both scholars of literature and history.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 31 August, 2017, -Aaron Moore (University of Edinburgh)
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines publications directly following the Russo-Japanese War, such as Boken Sekai, that featured early Japanese science fiction and speculative writing about the future. Transformations of the body, as well as non-human bodies, featured prominently as well as the expansion of empire.
Paper long abstract:
While satirical plays concerning life in alternate worlds were a staple of early modern fiction, translations of Western science and speculative fiction encouraged Japanese authors to imagine lives transformed by modern technology. After the emergence of mass published pulp fiction following the Russo-Japanese War, Japanese authors began to discuss the possibility of non-human sentient life, radical evolution of the human body, and future wars that would utterly transform the social, political, and economic order on planet Earth. This paper will explore generic conventions that traveled largely from Britain to Japan at the end of the Meiji era, as well as how the convergence of adventure fiction and science fiction produced new forms of literary imagination at a time when the Japanese Empire was coming into existence.
Magazines such as Boken sekai, Tanken sekai, and Nihon oyobi Nihonjin did not just parrot the generic conventions of British imperial adventure fiction; they opened up a new space to discuss how technological progress might change the human body, as well as introduce non-human sentient life to the world. By popularising scientific and Materialist views of life, the magazines also encouraged the Japanese public to take part in transforming themselves for the future. As Japan's 'imperial democracy' began to take form, then, readers of pulp fiction were encouraged to think of their bodies and minds as similarly mutable.These themes would only grow in importance in the 1920s and 1930s, which will be discussed in the paper by Jacobowitz.
Seth Jacobowitz (Yale University)
Paper short abstract:
Seth Jacobowitz's paper investigates conceptions of artificial human being and robots in the literature and thought of Unno Juza (1897-1949) and Hirabayashi Hatsunosuke (1892-1931) against the politics of mass culture in 1920s Japan.
Paper long abstract:
This paper investigates conceptions of artificial human being and robots in the literature and thought of Unno Juza (1897-1949) and Hirabayashi Hatsunosuke (1892-1931) against the politics of mass culture in 1920s Japan. Building upon an earlier, widespread concept of "mechanical man" (kikai ningen) in the Meiji era, a new discourse of "artificial humans" (jinzo ningen) synonymous with robot (robotto) emerged in the 1920s that drew its imaginative force in particular from Soviet-influenced science and science fiction, as well as mass cultural criticism. I contend that anxieties about empire, science, technology, and looming total war suffused discourses of the future by comparatively examining Unno and Hirabayashi's use of the "man-made man" trope that circulated widely at this time. Going a step further, I insist that the vacillations and indeterminacy between this trope's mechanical and biological modalities were paradoxically held in common by both of these Shin Seinen (New Youth) magazine writers, despite their diametrically opposed political stances. In this sense, the liberatory potential of these "future bodies" for Unno and Hirabayashi alike was from the outset overshadowed by the capacity to irrevocably transform mass culture and alienate social relations.
John Whittier Treat (Yale University)
Paper short abstract:
Numa Shōzō's scifi Human Cattle Yapoo (Kachikujin Yapū, 1956-91) has been typically read as a racialized analogy of a masochistic Japan under American occupation, but the work is also a precursor of current speculative writing imagining a posthuman future.
Paper long abstract:
Numa Shōzō's multivolume scifi novel of a post-nuclear world, Human Cattle Yapoo (Kachikujin Yapū, 1956-91) has been hailed by Tatsumi Takayuki as Japan's most important literary work since 1945. Typically read as a racialized analogy of a masochistic Japan under a sadistic American occupation, I argue that it is better understood as what Mishima Yukio called it: the greatest intellectual novel (kannen shōsetsu) postwar Japan produced. I will argue the work is a precursor of current speculative writing imagining a posthuman future, one in which Japanese serve as living commodes, sex machines, clothing, furniture, door mats, and even meals.