Paper short abstract:

During the 1920s, Tani Jōji published short stories exploring the Japanese American community. In one of these collections, Modan Dekameron (1929), he presents a multifaceted America featuring heavy use of hybridized styles, languages, characters and images.

Paper long abstract:

When Hasegawa Kaitarō (1900-1935) returned to Japan in 1924 after four years in the American Midwest and New York, he intended to return to America as soon as possible. However, the Immigration Act of 1924 prevented it. A few months later, he began to publish short stories in the magazine Shinseinen under the pen name Tani Jōji. Known as Meriken jappu mono ("Jap-American stories"), these stories were compiled into two volumes in 1929: Tekisaku mushuku (Homeless in Texas) and Modan Dekameron (The Modern Decameron).

As the author makes clear in his foreword, the purpose of Modan Dekameron was to present Japanese readers with the modern city (kindai no tokai), which he compared to a living being (seibutsu). He also metaphorically explained that "nocturnal walkers" (yoru no sanposha) stroll and dive into this modern city by transforming themselves into chair legs, waste paper, garters and post boxes, etc. Tani Jōji, whose foreword ends by stating that this modern city can be found in its American version (as a "modern Rome"), focuses his stories on the apparently fictional experiences of Japanese migrants interacting with other ethnic minorities and the WASP majority.

He also makes abundant use of modernist writing techniques in the 10 stories that make up Modan Dekameron, including an explosion of narrative structures, mixing of language levels, linguistic code-switching, humoristic puns and metatextual discourses. Modernism thus allowed Tani Jōji to give a voice to new, often muzzled, characters. Modan Dekameron is anchored in a non-linear, kaleidoscopic vision of the modern city, often compared to the art of collage. The stories and hybridization they employ concretely capture the zeitgeist of the 1920s, shared by Japan and Western countries.

In this presentation, I will use examples from Modan Dekameron to analyze how this work's themes and formal elements help create a highly hybridized text, reflecting the very image of the modern city that Tani Jōji wished to present to his Japanese readers.

Paper short abstract:

Edogawa Ranpo created detective Akechi Kogoro, with 'mixed-blood' looks and cross-border origins. During the Asia-Pacific war, transcultural writing was censored; Ranpo studied sexuality and discovered similarities in the relationships between men in Tokugawa period and ancient Greek philosophers.

Paper long abstract:

Edogawa Ranpo (1894-1965) (his name, being a pseudonym, was a rendering of the name Edgar Allan Poe) was a detective novel writer in the Showa Modernism period, writing in the ero guro and nonsense genres (erotic grotesque, nonsense). Ranpo in 1925 created the character of detective Akechi Kogoro in his fiction, with 'mixed-blood' looks and cross-border origins. At the beginning of the series, Akechi appears with loose hair, wearing a kimono, but eventually he turns into a stylish detective in 'Returnee from Shanghai'. The reference to 'mixed-blood' looks was a representation of Kogoro's cross-border roots, and functioned as a signifier of his mysterious private life. Besides, he had a charm which not only attracted heterosexuals but also people of diverse sexual orientations. This also marks the transition from the 1920s to the 1930s, when Shanghai was both a colonial and a cosmopolitan city. Asian colonies were a region that brought in modern Western culture to Japan.

The detective novel genre in Japan started out as a translated literary genre. The modernist men's magazine Shinseinen (New Youth) increased its sales by the publication of the story of 'kaigai yûhi'(success of the colonization) and of detective novels. The detective novel genre in Japan transformed gradually to also produce new kinds of texts, with its intertextuality with Western detective novels. During the Asia-Pacific War, the detective novel genre was suppressed through censorship. Some detective novel writers had moved on to the historical novel genre whereas others moved onto the colonial exploration genre set in Asia, and some others had moved onto the science fiction genre with a story line in which Japan beats the West. At that time, Rampo turned away from war, and spent his time as a collector of Tokugawa period books and foreign books comprising of literature on 'nanshoku' in the Tokugawa period, on ancient Greek culture, on the Renaissance, and on modern homosexuality. He understood the relationship between men in the Tokugawa period and the fraternity of ancient Greek philosophers as being similar and transcending time and place.

Paper short abstract:

People qualified as "mixed blood" often appear in modern literary writings in Japan. They have been portrayed as being burdened with the conflicts of the contact zone in each era. I shall consider the representation of such figures through analysis of literary texts from the 1920s-1940s.

Paper long abstract:

People qualified as "mixed blood" often appear in modern Japanese literary writings. In this paper, I will consider the representation of people who cross national, ethnic and blood boundaries, while exploring novelists and poets from the 1920s-1940s.

"Mixed-blood" people have been represented and consumed as agents of conflict in the contact zone of each era in prewar Japan. As the number of imperialistic colonies and settlements grew, so the contact zone, where Japanese and other ethnic groups intermingled, also expanded. This contact ranged from economic, political, linguistic and cultural to sexual, creating new problems of "mixed-blood" children. "Contact zone" does not simply mean a space where people encounter each other. Spaces of contact are often accompanied by a hierarchy. Therefore, the contact zone is not only a space for encounters; it is also a space for negotiating and communicating how to behave in a place where power is unbalanced.

Novelists and poets from the period examined used "mixed-blood" people in their writings, describing the conflicts between two or more countries or ethnic groups via the bodies, behaviors and languages of their characters. Readers also imagined the conflicts of these countries and ethnic groups by reading the bodies, behaviors, words and bloodlines of the figures portrayed. Significantly, the nationality and ethnicity portrayed are neither equal nor equivalent. The significance of analyzing the representation of "mixed-blood" people in literary works lies in the fact that we can observe the hierarchy of the specific time and place as well as witness the moment of confusion in the hierarchy itself.

This paper will focus on Japanese literature from the 1920s to 1940s, including Japanese language works from Japanese overseas territories and colonies like Korea and Taiwan, at a time when the Japanese Empire was expanding. This was also the age of Americanism, influencing people's consumption, culture and lives. Authors to be mentioned include Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, Nakajima Atsushi, Nagai Kafū and Oguma Hideo.

Paper short abstract:

Hisao Jūran wrote widely in various genres, from detective stories to non-fiction. After five years in France (1929-1933), he began to publish short stories in Shinseinen inspired by his experiences. How and why did Jūran construct these global plots? Nonchalant dōchūki will provide some clues.

Paper long abstract:

Hisao Jūran (1902-1957) is a highly distinctive author who wrote widely in various literary genres, from detective stories and non-fiction to comic and historical fiction. His extended stay in France (1929-1933) is said to have been motivated by a desire to train in various fields. Indeed, Jūran is said to have studied optics, musicology, and then theatre in a school run by Charles Dullin, one of the leading stage directors at the time. Shortly after returning to Japan, he began to publish in Shinseinen, beginning with three translations of Tristan Bernard's short stories, then a comical fiction entitled Nonchalant dōchūki (inspired by the dōchūki, or humorous travel fiction, of the late Edo period, but transposed to France, hence the original bilingual title). It was serialized in Shinseinen from January to August 1934, in eight episodes. The story takes place in 1929 and sees a Japanese couple, nicknamed Konkichi and Tanu, cross the country exploring incredible places and encountering burlesque people, some of them French but not only. Described as "Asians" (tōyōjin), they are sometimes mistaken for Chinese in the context of the Great Depression. At a time when the international "bohême" was gathering in Paris, the Riviera and alpine resorts, this travel fiction creates an international space in which Japanese characters are chosen not for their ethnic specificity but for their capacity to portray oddness and reinforce new performances, practices and languages. Indeed, the story develops in a complex, witty and brilliant style, incorporating French and English words, and even occasionally drawings - using furigana profusely to help readers follow the plot.

We shall see how this aboveground world, which can be described as a utopian, cosmopolitan space, corresponds to slapstick comedy, and how the writing style itself is influenced by a modernist hybridity. The ultimate aim is to show how and why Jūran constructed these global agencies, with a look at the evolution of the international aspect of his work, which later included the darkness of conflict and war.