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- Convenor:
-
Thomas Garcin
(The University of Strasbourg)
Send message to Convenor
- Chair:
-
Mayumi Shimosakai
(University of Orléans)
- Stream:
- Modern Literature
- Location:
- Torre A, Piso -1, Auditório 002
- Sessions:
- Thursday 31 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
This panel aims at investigating and analyzing the complex relationships between committed literature and the quest for identity in 1960s Japan. Special attention will be paid to the interactions between the authors' literary identities and the community.
Long Abstract:
In the 1950s, the context of the Cold War and the socio-political restructuration of Japan harbours ideological struggles which still seem to revolve around the ideal of a grand collective narrative. By contrast, in the 1960s, Mishima Yukio's suicide, as well as the violence of the most extremist of the student groups of the New Left movement was only remotely related to the general public's concern. These actions bear witness of a new type of commitment whose driving forces were probably more existential than political. Simultaneously, new ideological struggles emerged, focusing on specific issues, such as the place of minorities. It is not without significance that the personal and idiosyncratic dimension of commitment became more visible and was increasingly asserted during this period. Japan entered a new era, in which collective narratives were losing steam. From then on, commitment became a way to assert or reveal one's identity. Such a shift raises the question of the interactions between the individual and the community: how can a writer raise public interest towards a personal issue? How can individual differences and specificities find their rightful place within the society, the nation, or shared values? The authors this panel will present all came from various political and literary horizons, and possessed their own writing styles, but they nevertheless all challenged the relationship between the individual and the community.
As Thomas Garcin will show, Mishima Yukio or Takahashi Kazumi's dreams of heroic deeds flirted with solipsism. Acknowledging the anachronistic and illusory dimension of their political stances, they yet both tried to universalize their ideals through a classic or neoclassic style. Conversely, in Mayumi Shimosakai's presentation, we will see that zainichi authors such as Kim Tal-su or Kim Seok-peom put their personal identity into their writings, creating an original type of literature. Makiko Andro-Ueda will demonstrate that Morisaki Kazue similarly forged a specific language in which she expressed her quest for a new identity, showing solidarity with people on the margins of Japanese society. Such approaches are antithetical, but they both illustrate a quest for identity, closely related to the Japanese context of their time.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 31 August, 2017, -Paper short abstract:
This paper aims at analyzing the relationship between Mishima Yukio and Takahashi Kazumi's texts and highlight the similarities and differences between both writers in their relationship to politics, identity and commitment. I will focus my analysis on two novels published in 1969.
Paper long abstract:
Jean-François Lyotard contends that the key feature of the postmodern condition is the absence of collective narrative. Whereas modernity is characterized by the preeminence of shared ideologies, postmodernity is a depoliticized era in which economic growth and materialism arose as sole common values. In Japan, the 1960s is often considered a shifting point. According to various historians of thought, such as Oguma Eiji, it is indeed during that period that public opinion gradually became disengaged with politics.
In that respect, novelists Mishima Yukio and Takahashi Kazumi could be considered as some of the very last ideological writers in Japan. The former advocated a return to the ultranationalists' ideals of pre-war Japan, while the latter was viewed as the literary voice of Maoist students at the end of the 1960s. However, in their fictions, they both promoted a paradoxical view of political action, suggesting that commitment was closely related to simulacrum and nihilism. In their views, commitment seems to be an existential issue, more than a political one.
Though the kinship between Mishima Yukio and Takahashi Kazumi has already been mentioned, no comparative literary study of both writers has been published until now. I wish to present some of my initial reflection in order to fill this gap. I will first analyze the relationship between Mishima and Takahashi's texts and their context and then highlight the similarities as well as the difference between both writers in their relationship to politics and commitment.
My analysis will be focused on two novels: Honba (Runaway Horses) by Mishima Yukio and Daraku (The Fall) by Takahashi Kazumi. Both novels were published in 1969 and illustrate the ambiguous relationships of their authors to Commitment.
Paper short abstract:
The first "Zainichi" Korean writers, Kim Tal-su and Kim Soek-poem, described Korea mainly through its historical turmoil. Their literary project was doubly political: denouncing foreign intervention in Korea and inventing at the same time a new kind of writing within the "Japanese Literature".
Paper long abstract:
Literary critics are unanimous in situating the beginning of "Zainichi" Korean writing in the 1960s'. Kim Tal-su (1920-1997) who wrote most of his novels in the 1950s' and the 1960s' is seen as the founding father of this kind of writing. As for Kim Seok-peom (1925- ), he began his career as a writer in 1957 publishing his first novel that year. As well as being the first "Zainichi" Korean writers, Tal-su and Seok-peom share another common point: they both describe Korea in its historical turmoil. Kim Tal-su depicts the revolt of the Korean people against the American presence in Taebaek Mountains (1969). Kim Seok-peom's life work, The Volcanic Island (1967-1995) concerns the Jeju Uprising.
Korea was indeed involved in the Cold War political structure immediately after its independence, although the division of the nation and the Korean War were brewing already from the late 1940s'. Kim Tal-su and Kim Seok-peom were both confronted with this situation and it shows in their work. Trying to interpret their work raises therefore several questions. Is their political commitment through literature a pure coincidence due to the historical period they lived in? On the other hand, couldn't we find a connection between their writings about Korea and them being the first "Zainichi" Korean authors? Couldn't this be a strategy for constructing their literary identity? Concerning the political features of their work it matches the definition of Minor Literature dear to Deleuze and Guattari. Their project is indeed doubly political: denouncing foreign intervention in Korea and inventing at the same time a new kind of writing within the "Japanese Literature" written in Japanese and that had belonged only to Japanese authors until then.
Paper short abstract:
Morisaki Kazue (1927-) is a writer now being rediscovered. In the 1960s, in addition to her well known reports, she wrote various works on women's issues. Without any access to gender studies, her style strayed between poetry, theoretical reflections and letters, that we propose to analyse.
Paper long abstract:
My presentation will focus on the writings of Morisaki Kazue (1927-) from the late 50s to the early 70s. Her works range from poetry, to articles or essays on contemporary issues. She wrote about working class people and about the situation of the oppressed ones, especially women.
Some of her reports, including The ladies gone abroad, (Karayuki-san, 1976), one of the earliest reports on Japanese prostitutes sent abroad from the late 19th century to the early 20th, are still popular today. However, in the 1960s, Morisaki Kazue was better known for her works on women, which somehow exceeded the generic framework of report : The possession of non possession : notes on gender and social classes (Hishoyû no shoyû, sei to kaikyû oboegaki, 1963), Refreshing lacks (Sawayakana ketsujo, poetry, 1964), The third gender : the far-off eros (Daisan no sei, harukanaru erosu, 1965), An imagined wedding with the Motherland (Haha no kuni tono gensô-kon, 1970) …
These works were written at a period of time during which neither gender studies nor subaltern studies were in fashion. Morisaki's style strayed here between reportage and poetry, between theoretical reflection and daily notes or letters. Her style was then characterized by the use of enigmatic metaphorical formulations, elaborating on trivial images from everyday life.
Neither experts nor general readers fairly and impartially evaluated these writings. In addition to her elusive styles, the peculiarity of her motivation at the base of her works, such as a sense of atonement for belonging to the ruling class before the war, probably contributed to this lack of fair recognition.
As gaps widen between classes, more attention is being paid to the relationship between literature and reality, and her works are now being rediscovered. The recognition from feminists is just the beginning. In this presentation, we will discuss how she established herself as a writer, from the period when, based on a villege of coal mines in Kyûshû, she published the magazine "Village of the circles" (Sâkuru-mura) with Ueno Eishin and Tanikawa Gan, and "Letters without signatures" (Mumei Tsûshin) alone, to the 70s, when her writings acquired more stability.