The aesthetics of Japanese fascism / Alan Tansman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tansman, Alan, 1960-

Series:

Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University.

A study of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Japanese literature--20th century--History and criticism.

Japanese literature.

Fascism in literature.

Fascist aesthetics--Japan--History--20th century.

Fascist aesthetics.

Fascism--Japan--History--20th century.

Fascism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (369 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, c2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In this wide-ranging study of Japanese cultural expression, Alan Tansman reveals how a particular, often seemingly innocent aesthetic sensibility-present in novels, essays, popular songs, film, and political writings-helped create an "aesthetic of fascism" in the years leading up to World War II. Evoking beautiful moments of violence, both real and imagined, these works did not lead to fascism in any instrumental sense. Yet, Tansman suggests, they expressed and inspired spiritual longings quenchable only through acts in the real world. Tansman traces this lineage of aesthetic fascism from its beginnings in the 1920's through its flowering in the 1930's to its afterlife in postwar Japan.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Preface

Abbreviations

Introduction: The Aesthetics Of Japanese Fascism

1. Modernist Beginnings: Akutagawa Ryūmnosuke And Kobayashi Hideo

2. The Beauty Of Violence: Yasuda Yojūrō's "Japanese Bridges

3. Objects Of The Sublime In Literary Writing: Yasuda Yojūrō, Yanagi Sōetsu, Kawabata Yasunari, And Shiga Naoya

4. The Rhetoric Of Unspoken Fascism: The Essence Of The National Polity

5. Sentimental Fascism On Screen: Mother Under The Eyelids

6. An Aesthetics Of Devotion: Kobayashi Hideo's Cultural Criticism

7. Filaments Of Fascism In Postwar Times

Coda: Reading Fascist Aesthetics

Notes

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

9780520943490

052094349X

OCLC:

1110706903