Inexorable modernity : Japan's grappling with modernity in the arts / edited by Hiroshi Nara.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Nara, Hiroshi, 1951-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Arts, Japanese--1868-.

Arts, Japanese.

Modernism (Aesthetics)--Japan.

Modernism (Aesthetics).

Modernism (Art)--Japan.

Modernism (Art).

Modernism (Literature)--Japan.

Modernism (Literature).

Japan.

Physical Description:

xiii, 269 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Lanham, MD : Lexington Books, [2007]

Summary:

Beginning in the late Edo period, the Japanese faced a rapidly and irreversibly changing world in which industrialization, westernization, and internationalization were exerting pressure upon an entrenched traditional culture. The Japanese themselves felt threatened by Western powers, with their sense of superiority and military might. Yet the Japanese were more prepared to meet this challenge than was thought at the time, and they used a variety of strategies to address the tension between modernity and tradition. Inexorable Modernity illuminates our understanding of how Japan has dealt with modernity and of what mechanisms, universal and local, we can attribute to the mode of negotiation between tradition and modernity in three major forms' of art: theatre, the visual arts, and literature. Dr. Hiroshi Nara brings together a thoughtful collection of essays that demonstrate that traditional and modern approaches to life draw from one another, and tradition, whether real or created, was sought out in order to find a way to live with the burden of modernity. Inexorable Modernity is a valuable and enlightening read for those interested in Asian studies and history.

Contents:

Inexorable modernity / Hiroshi Nara

Potentially disruptive : censorship and the painter Kawanabe Kyōsai / Brenda G. Jordan

"Modernité in art": Kojima Kikuo's critique of contemporary Japanese painting, 1931-1940 / Mikiko Hirayama

The ascent of yōga in modern Japan and the Pacific War / Mayu Tsuruya

Art and ethics in Watsuji Tetsurō's philosophy / Hiroshi Nara

Contesting authority through comic disruption : mixed marriages as metaphor in postwar Kyōgen experiments / Jonah Salz

An aesthetic of destruction: Mishima Yukio's My friend Hitler / David G. Goodman

Remembered idylls, forgotten truths: nostalgia and geography in the drama of Shimizu Kunio / David Jortner

Healing the (metaphysically) sick (theatre): the Buddhist Ibsen in Christian Japan / Kevin J. Wetmore Jr.

The wild geese revisited: Mori Ōgai's mix of old and new / Keiko I. McDonald

Public space and the nature of modern fiction: Izumi Kyōka's Noble blood, heroic blood / Charles Shirō Inouye

Yokomitsu Riichi's two machines / John K. Gillespie.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780739118412

0739118412

9780739118429

0739118420

OCLC:

71552312