1,720,983 research outputs found
Dystopia as a narrative keyword: Tawada Yōko’s responses to Japanese 3/11
Full text linkOn 11th March 2011 at 2:46 PM the Japanese writer Tawada Yōko was in Berlin, miles away from her Japanese homeland. Still, the author got affected by the 9 magnitude earthquake that stroke Tōhoku coast at that time. As the tsunami came to shore wiping out everything that was spared by the quake, the aftershocks reached Tawada and now reverberates in some of her last new literary works. First, Fushi no Shima (“The Island of the Eternal Life”) published in the collection Sore demo sangatsu wa, mata : a ten-page story about a no more lively island, namely, Japan. Then, after years of muteness regarding the Daishinsai topic, the 2014 collection of novels published under the evocative title Kentōshi (“The messenger of the votive lantern”) resonates the echo of that aftermath again : Tawada imagines a forthcoming catastrophic scenario clearly influenced by 2011 disaster. The dystopian keyword adopted by the author for these post-Fukushima narratives represents a camera lens through which the writer observes Japanese 11th March. This brief article aims to investigate these two Tawada Yōko’s responses to Japanese 3/11 with the aid of the journal the author wrote during those days and published under the French title Journal des jours tremblants : Après Fukushima
Nostalgia as a means to overcome trauma: the case of Yoshimoto Banana's 'Sweet Hereafter'.
Full text linkThe natsukashisa (nostalgia) is a common key to interpretation of novels written by the Japanese writer Yoshimoto Banana. Considered as the desire for a replay of life, nostalgia is evaluated as a solution for the sensation of emptiness and solitude attributed to modern life; a gap that can be bridged by memory, recollection and flash-backs of the protagonists in Yoshimoto’s novels. As a representation for something gone, the objects of this nostalgic feeling assume different forms in Yoshimoto’s works: a faraway house, a lost person, a feeling perceived and then missed; dreams, hallucinations, images and paintings: everything is transformed by the author in a vehicle to allow the reader to sympathize with the protagonists and share the same nostalgic feeling. Author’s attempt is to encourage the young readers to keep on seeking the lost self in the past in order to not betray one’s identity. This is the main topic one can also recognise in her novel called Sweet Hereafter, a publication in which nostalgia for a self lost in a car accident is compared to the one felt by the hisaisha of Tōhoku region who lost everything after the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on 11th March 2011. Here Yoshimoto suggests natsukashisa as the possible way to overcome the traumatic experience of witnessing Japanese Daishinsai. This brief investigation proposes a literary case study that highlights the relation between trauma and memory, with a particular focus on nostalgia considered as a positive means for overcoming traumatic experience
Literature remakes: how catastrophe influences the communication of trauma in literature - An inquiry on Nakamori Akio and Kawakami Hiromi 2011 short novels -
No full textThe tradition of the literary retelling is not anew: classical authors like Omero have been quoted and revisited a number of times. Japanese literary responses to 11th March catastrophe seem to follow a similar trend. This brief research aims to investigate Nakamori Akio and Kawakami Hiromi 2011 novels as examples of literary remakes in a new “catastrophic” perspective: the attempt is to demonstrate how catastrophe influences the communication of trauma in literature. The research underlines analogies and differences between the original versions and the remaking under the 3/11 keyword, suggesting the need to communicate trauma as the main reason for the rewriting
The “Literature of the Catastrophe” as a Canon: from Genbaku Bungaku to Fukushima Bungaku
Full text linkThe literary responses to Fukushima disaster appeared in the last few years
highlighted the similarities with Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombing
experiences as long as both tragedies were caused by an arguable usage of nuclear
power. What is remarkable, is that a seismically active area like Japan subjected to
earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions ever since has not ever taken a stand on
the “literature of the catastrophe” in itself. While the literature about Shoah got a
foothold as Holocaust novel, the Japanese genbaku bungaku was instead refused by
the Japanese bundan and by hibakusha themselves sounding a critical note for the
literary value of the testimonial accounts. Nowadays, the increasing number of post-
Fukushima literary works brought to the fore the need to reconsider the traditional
literary canon to revalue a production, the one regarding catastrophe, which especially
in Japan found literary expressions since the dawn of time: Kamo no Chōmei, Terada
Torahiko, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke are just a few of the authors involved in the process
of transposing into words the trauma related to disasters that occurred in the country
and the necessary efforts to overcome them. This brief paper provides an excursus of
the critical debate concerning the relation between literature and canon to define the
literary responses to catastrophe. On one hand, it underlines the continuity of genbaku
bungaku themes, on the other hand, it reveals the innovative character of the newborn
Fukushima bungaku in terms of representing trauma not only in poetic and narrative
forms but also on social media
Literary Agency in the Wake of Catastrophe
Full text linkTextual agency plays a fundamental role with regard to the literary production devoted to catastrophic events and the trauma they entail; it raises questions about the ethics of the disaster, as if to say the legitimacy of the literary works on the theme. The authorial commitment to bear witness to the events often clashes with the unrepresentability of the event itself: silence and discursivity are both misleading choices in the sense that the first is a real blot on History, while the latter implies to domesticate trauma in order to transpose it into literary forms. This article aims to give relevance to the therapeutic agency of the Literature of the catastrophe and in doing so, it contributes to the re-evaluation of the genre as part of the literary canon
WAGŌ RYŌICHI’S NET-POETRY: TRADITION AND INNOVATION
No full textWagō Ryōichi is a Japanese poet who met with success after publishing his poetical works on Twitter: real time testimony of the aftershocks in the devastated Tōhoku area that spread worldwide after 11th March 2011. The term net-poetry embraces the double nature of (social) «network» and «poetry», combining poetical verses with images and photographs. Nevertheless, despite the outstanding innovation of this literary production, Wagō’s poems frequently pay homages to the Japanese literary tradition especially the genbau bungaku genre (A-bomb literature). The aim of this article is to underline the role of Wagō’s net-poetry as a literary hub between tradition (especially referring to Hara Tamiki and Tōge Sankichi’s literary production) and innovation under the keywords of “catastrophe” and “nuclear power”, digging up a possible connection between Japanese genbaku experience and the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant nuclear fallout
New trend in teaching contemporary Japanese literature: the case of multidisciplinary courses on Fukushima disaster
Full text linkここ数年の間に、文学作品は従来の活字という枠を越え、新たな
創作の様式を展開してきた。多和田葉子や和合亮一のように朗読パフォーマンスを得意とする
作家が現れ、その朗読パフォーマンスの研究なしに彼らの作品を理解することはできなくなった。特に2011 年以降は、福島第一原発事故に関する作品の発表を精力的に行っている。このような文学作品における新たな傾向は、現代日本文学教育の見直しを迫るものである。学生に多角的な視点から作品を理解させるためには、特定の作家や文学ジャンルではなく、特定のテーマに焦点を当てた学際的な教育コースの奨励が求められる。本投稿論文では、共通のキーワード「3.11（2011 年3 月11 日の大震災）」をもとに、文学、映画、漫画、アニメという様々な芸術分野を研究対象として取り入れた、カリフォルニア大学バークレー校（2013 年）や、モントリオール大学（2015 年）で行われたコース
の実例を紹介する。また、従来の教育法を見直し、特定のテーマに対する多角的な視点を養う革新的なアプローチを図ることの重要性を提示していく
Quando il cielo piove d'indifferenza
No full textYoshida Yōhei, scapolo quarantenne, è impossibilitato a fuggire dalla sua cittadina minacciata dalle radiazioni e ormai divenuta città fantasma. A trattenerlo è la madre, allettata in seguito a un ictus e quindi bisognosa delle sue costanti cure e attenzioni. L'incontro con una volontaria nelle zone evacuate e l'improvvisa morte della madre rappresenteranno per il protagonista l'occasione per ricominciare. Nel secondo racconto Itō Kana, giovane sfollata presso la casa della zia, è scelta come protagonista di un docufilm realizzato dal club scolastico. Tema centrale del lungometraggio è l'incidente nucleare di Fukushima Daiichi e la desolazione delle zone evacuate. L'importanza delle relazioni umane e dei piccoli gesti quotidiani sono i veri protagonisti della scrittura delicata di Shiga Izumi. Sullo sfondo, le zone evacuate dominate dalla radiofobia e dalla disgregazione sociale
Kintsugi identities in the post-catastrophe Japan: the hibakusha in the post-1954 and post-2011 literature
Full text linkKintsugi identifies the ancient Japanese art of repairing broken pottery using lacquer mixed
up with powdered gold, silver or platinum: the result is a new piece of art whose beauty resides
in the emphasis given to the injuries. The surface of the manufacture is crossed by gold and
silver sparkling ribs, proud as a knight who shows his wounds.
A watchful gaze of the Tohōku area after the 11th March 2011 Daishinsai reflects the kintsugi
identity of Japanese society in its full controversy: the evacuees at the refugee camps are still
seeking aids from the Japanese government; the workers at the Fukushima Daiichi are still fighting
to obtain justice for the violation of any occupational safety regulations by TEPCO; the collective
burials have swept away the identity of those injured to death by the tsunamis and survivors are
still struggle to restore those lives, in order to not let them fell into oblivion. All these figures have
in common the same experience of the three-fold catastrophe of 11 March 2011: they all represent
different pieces of the same pot, held together by gold and silver ribs, the hibakusha identity.
Japanese literature stands as a spokesperson for this social fragmentation returning the voice of
the victims and by encouraging Japanese ganbarism it reveals the internal corruption which divides
Japanese society in terms of identity: disowned or recognized identity; awarded or hampered
identity; protected or refused identity. In a word, kintsugi identity of contemporary Japan
Wird irgendetwas mit mir geschehen? Psycho(patho)logical perspectives on Hannah Arendt’s The Banality of Evil
Full text linkIn 1961, the Eichmann trial opened in Jerusalem, and its worldwide resonance through media coverage questioned the collective conscience about responsibility for Nazi crimes. German philosopher Hannah Arendt attended the process as a special correspondent for the U.S. magazine The New Yorker. Her Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963) caused a great scandal: the author advanced the brazen idea of collective co-responsibility for Nazi crimes, reporting the identikit of a standard bureaucrat, a seemingly ordinary man, just like any one of us. Almost sixty years after its publication, this study adopts a primarily psycho(patho)logical perspective to reflect once again on the considerations Arendt shared in the Banality of Evil. In showing the multiple facets of banality, the research investigates recent results in the analysis of the criminal mind in order to shed light on the etiology of evil
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