Paper short abstract:

This paper will analyse Unnō Jūza's (1897-1949) attempt to organize a "popular scientific literary movement" in the scientific magazine Musen Denwa, focusing on the symbiotic relationship between science and literature that shaped the scientific popular discourse of the dawn of the Shōwa era.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will focus on the encounter between science and literature that shaped the phenomenon of "popularizing science", by which I mean the use of both fiction and scientific knowledge within texts published in popular magazines. I argue that this phenomenon finds its beginnings in the Meiji period and it is reflected in several magazines (not only scientific in their content). The same phenomenon continues during the Taishō and Shōwa periods in magazines such as Musen Denwa, where Unno Jūza (1897-1949), himself writer and scientist today considered as the "father of Japanese SF", attempted to organize what he called a "popular scientific literary movement" (taishū kagaku bungei undō). This project found space in the column Taishū Kagaku Bungei and had a short life: it lasted only four numbers (April - June 1927). However, this episode, which marks Unnō's literary debut, gives us a paradigmatic example of the way according which science and literature were used at the dawn of Shōwa era. Declaring that the "Japanese have the mission to convert Japan into a scientific country", the magazine is a heterogeneous patchwork of fictional pieces and popular science texts (in the form of article, and even manga). It is a textual space whose construction is predicated on the participation of the readership.

In his seminal work Kindai dokusha no seiritsu (The Rise of the Modern Reader), Maeda Ai claims that in order to grasp the target audience we need to take into account three factors: author's awareness of the reader, reader's reception, and the structure of the publishing system. By analysing the magazine and its texts following these three directions, I intend to show how crucial the symbiotic relationship between science and literature was in shaping the popular imagination, and how the phenomenon of "popularizing science" is closely related to magazines of the preceding decades.