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- Convenors:
-
Michiko Mae
(University Dusseldorf)
Ina Hein (University of Vienna)
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- Section:
- Modern Literature
- Sessions:
- Thursday 26 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Brussels
Short Abstract:
Focusing on expressions of multilingualism in contemporary literature, we explore the invigorating challenges the increasing diversity of literary voices poses to hegemonic concepts of Japanese literature as written in standard Japanese and tied to a homogenizing understanding of Japaneseness.
Long Abstract:
The linguistic landscape of Japanese literature has constantly been undergoing transformations since the Meiji period. Beginning with the genbun itchi movement, much of this change has been perceived as a move towards standardization and increased homogeneity. However, the conceptualization of Japanese literature as kokugo, or national literature, written in standard Japanese by and for ethnic Japanese, meant that ever new categories such as "zainichi" bungaku (Resident Korean literature), nihongo bungaku (Japanophone literature), ekkyō bungaku (border-crossing literature), etc. had to be created for those who deviate from the hegemonic model. Our panel looks at those margins. Discussing the choice of Japanese as literary language by foreign-born authors such as Levy Hideo, and scrutinizing the highly experimental translingual textual fabric produced by multilingual Japanese authors such as Tawada Yōko and On Yūjū, we explore the challenges the increasing polyphony of literary voices poses to national(ist) understandings of literature. In the same vein, we scrutinize the literary use of Japanese dialects in texts by Kimura Yūsuke, Yū Miri and Arai Takako, and read them in the light of post-3/11 discussions about unequal power relations between center and margin.
Specifically, we consider the politics of the mother(land)'s tongue by first discussing the exophonic compositions of Tawada Yōko, who claims to be writing in two languages in order to keep a creative distance to both of them, and On Yūjū, who hovers between Taiwanese and Japanese, the language she grew up with and writes in. The second paper looks at a similar tension between standardized Japanese and local dialects, paying particular attention to the post-3.11 surge in texts that employ Tōhoku vernaculars to decenter the literary discourse. The third paper discusses Levy Hideo's literary multilingualism as a strategy to explore the relationships between identity, migration, and language(s). In sum, all three presentations are concerned with the question of how these authors, by their respective linguistic choices, challenge hegemonic concepts of Japanese literature as written in standard Japanese and tied to a homogenizing understanding of Japaneseness.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 26 August, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
Tawada and On, writers of exophonic transcultural works, expose the unity of nation, cultural identity and national language as an ideology and aim at deconstructing it. They highlight not just the plurality of national standard languages, but also the diversity within each language itself.
Paper long abstract:
Tawada Yoko writes in Japanese and German and lives in an in-between sphere of languages. On Yūjū, born in Taiwan, writes her literary works in Japanese because she grew up in Japan. This incongruity of nationality and mother tongue causes her and her protagonists many problems and shows that even our globalized world is still defined by the assumed unity of nationality and the national standard language.
In some respects On already left her assumed Taiwanese mother tongue (as Tawada has always wanted). However, this in-between world proved not a free space for creativity. On the contrary, problems arose just from this polyphonic situation. For a long time, On had to justify her poor Chinese. Similar to the Japanese-Korean writer Lee Yangji (I Yanji) who had to study Korean as her assumed mother tongue (but actually a foreign language for her), On also had to learn her expected mother tongue Chinese.
Through the experience of the foreign, Tawada attempts to gain distance and thus freedom from both what is foreign to her and what is her own. The experience of the foreign becomes the medium and the method for separating herself from the binding attachment to any culture — both her own and the foreign. Through this distance she accesses a new space of freedom, creativity, and play. Here — beyond established cultural forms — it becomes possible to explore new forms of expression and writing.
This paper will analyze Tawada's and On's struggle in their respective attempts to transform their bi- or even multilingual situation into their own literary expressions. Through their works they expose the nationalistic, monolingual manner of thinking that is still prevalent even in today's globalized and multilingual world. Their literary works offer many possibilities to reflect on the complex relations between language, literature, national and cultural identity. Analyzing their writing can yield important suggestions concerning cultural (self-)translation, transcultural und transdifferent writings and heteroglossia and it can help show how these new strategies change traditional Japanese literature.
Paper short abstract:
Taking the work of Kimura Yūsuke, Yū Miri, and Arai Takako as examples, my presentation outlines an important literary strategy to inscribe, resist, and inadvertently reconfirm marginality in post-3/11 literature, namely the use of non-standard dialectal speech.
Paper long abstract:
The Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 hit a region that was traditionally regarded as periphery in many ways—politically, economically, culturally, and, last but not least, also linguistically. The literature that emerged from the 3/11 calamity echoes with the voices of the marginalized. My presentation outlines what could be considered an important literary strategy to inscribe marginality, namely the use of non-standard speech. Particularly if read against the post-3/11 debate on structural inequalities and domestic exploitation as deeper causes of the nuclear disasters, the inclusion of significant passages written entirely in Tōhoku vernaculars reveals political undertones. However, as my three case studies show, the implications differ depending on the discursive position of the respective author.
In Kimura Yūsuke's Isa no hanran (2012, Isa's Deluge), for instance, the protagonist leaves Tokyo for his Aomori hometown several months after the disaster. Through stories of rebellion about his disappeared outcast uncle, he slowly reconnects, and begins to identify with the local language and northern Japan's history of oppression. In this process, the author's native tongue, the Hachinohe dialect, takes center stage, allowing for the novel to be read as post-colonial project of "writing back" to the center.
Zainichi Korean writer Yū Miri, on the other hand, did not have any particular connections to Fukushima before moving there after the disaster to better understand the hardships of the suddenly uprooted local population. She had to rely on a local "translator" to give voice to her Fukushima native characters in the "history from below" outlined JR Ueno-eki kōenguchi (2014, Tokyo Ueno Station).
Lastly, I consider a collaborative translation of Ishikawa Takuboku's poems into the Ofunato vernacular, rendered by elderly female survivors in the area and edited by poet Arai Takako in 2017. Focusing on the presentation of the work rather than the actual translations, this section is concerned with issues of power and (un)representation in relation to language. Overall, my presentation uses dialectal speech in post-3/11 literature as a starting point to explore the related issues of authenticity, performance, appropriation, and paternalism in contemporary writing.
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses how U.S.-born author Levy Hideo, who has adopted Japanese as his literary language, employs a multilinguistic strategy to explore the relation between identity, migration, and language(s), thereby challenging the notion of Japanese 'national literature' (kokubungaku).
Paper long abstract:
U.S.-born Levy Hideo has spent parts of his childhood and adolescence in Taiwan, Hongkong and Japan. Having acquired Japanese as a foreign language, today he is a highly appraised author of fiction and essays written (predominantly) in Japanese. His early prose describes the protagonists' encounters with Japan and the Japanese language. Recently, however, Levy has increasingly been turning towards the literary form of the essay and, at the same time, to China as a main topic. A third category of texts authored by Levy consists of programmatic essays about his decision to adopt Japanese as his literary language and the challenges this poses to the usual conceptualization of 'Japaneseness' and 'Japanese national literature' (kokubungaku). Here, Levy clearly questions and subverts the common notion of the Japanese language solely belonging to the Japanese, and the idea that Japanese literature is written by and for ethnic Japanese only.
Though Levy's texts appear to be written in standard Japanese at first glance, a closer look reveals that they are interspersed with other languages, mostly English and Chinese. This paper undertakes a close reading of passages from Levy's writings. The analysis first focuses on the level of content: What statements does the author make with regard to the languages of English, Japanese, and Chinese? What connections are drawn between language(s) and identity? What connotations are ascribed to the experience of migration and the adoption of a new language? And how is the act of reading and writing literature in Japanese (as a foreign language) reflected upon? Secondly, I scrutinize the stylistic means Levy employs to inscribe multiple linguistic layers in his texts. Specifically, I look at inserts of words, phrases and sentences in languages other than Japanese; the unconventional use of kanji / hiragana / katakana; the use of loanwords; the use of rubi etc. The overarching question will be how this multilinguistic mode of writing relates to the ways in which Levy discusses the topics of migration, language, and identity.