Playing in the shadows : fictions of race and blackness in postwar Japanese literature / Will Bridges.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bridges, William H., 1983- author.

Series:

Michigan monograph series in Japanese studies ; no. 88.

Michigan monograph series in Japanese studies ; number 88

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Japanese fiction--Shōwa period, 1926-1989--History and criticism.

Japanese fiction.

Literature and race--Japan.

Literature and race.

Race in literature.

Black people in literature.

Japanese fiction--American influences.

African Americans--Relations with Japanese.

African Americans.

Japan--Intellectual life--1945-.

Japan.

Intellectual life.

Japan--Civilization--American influences.

Civilization.

Civilization--American influences.

Japanese fiction--Shōwa period.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

viii, 296 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Other Title:

Fictions of race and blackness in postwar Japanese literature

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2020.

Summary:

"Playing in the Shadows explores the body of literature arising from post-World War II Japanese authors' robust cultural exchanges with African Americans and African Americana. Rather than solely focusing on representations of African Americans in Japanese literature, this manuscript argues that the black characters who rise to the textual surface are just the tip of the signifying iceberg. Beneath those representations -- or, as Professor Bridges argues, even in the absence of overt representations of black characters, there runs a rich history of Afro-Japanese literary and cultural exchange, as well as a history characterized by cross-cultural-pollination and creative experimentation that spans the Pacific. By tracing how blackness is written in and into Japanese literature, this book argues that fictions of race provide visions of the way that postwar Japanese authors reimagine the ascription of race to bodies: in bodies of literature, the body politic, or the human body itself"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: Playing in the shadows, fictions of race, and blackness in postwar Japanese literature

Unspeakable things unspoken: Moments of silence, racial preoccupation, and the hauntology of blackness in the literature of occupied Japan

In the beginning: Ōe Kenzaburō and the creative nonfiction of blackness

Of passing significance: Pronominal politics, Nakagami Kenji, and the fiction of "Burakuness"

Genre trouble: Breaking the law of genre and literary blackness in the long 19702

Japanese literature in the age of hip hop: A mic check

Conclusion: Parallax vision and playing in the shadows

elsewhere and otherwise.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Bridges, William H., Playing in the shadows

ISBN:

9780472074426

0472074423

9780472054428

0472054422

OCLC:

1107343502