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.