Constructing subjectivities : autobiographies in modern Japan / Noboru Tomonari.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tomonari, Noboru, 1962-

Contributor:

Sabin W. Colton, Jr., Memorial Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Autobiography.

Japanese prose literature.

History.

Biography.

Japan--History--1868---Biography.

Japan.

Japanese prose literature--1868---History and criticism.

Physical Description:

xix, 215 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Lanham, MD : Lexington Books, [2008]

Summary:

Constructing Subjectivities addresses the relationship between memory and modernity to Japanese autobiographical texts. Noboru Tomonari construes autobiographies as embodying memory in modernity, and regards the conditions of modernity as having determined, in part, the shape of autobiographical texts. Japanese autobiographies are not simply bound to the cultural and social norms of the time, but the texts themselves are among the main agents fostering Japanese modernity. By analyzing biographies from figures of all walks of life, Tomonari demonstrates that mnemonic texts are crucial to the construction of modern ideological discourses such as those on the self, the family, entrepreneurship, the roles of women, and the nation. Constructing Subjectivities will be of interest to all levels of students and anyone with an interest in Japanese culture.

Contents:

Autobiographical reflections in the late Tokugawa period: lives in commerce

Creating modern managers: the uses of memory by Fukuzawa Yukichi and Shibusawa Eiichi

Self-narration as propaganda: autobiographies by anarchists and socialists in the 1920s

Working mothers: autobiographies by Japanese women in the 1950s.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 197-207) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Sabin W. Colton, Jr., Memorial Fund.

ISBN:

9780739117163

0739117165

OCLC:

180989430