Postmodern, Feminist and Postcolonial Currents in Contemporary Japanese Culture: A Reading of Murakami Haruki, Yoshimoto Banana, Yoshimoto Takaaki and Karatani Kojin

by Murakami,Fuminobu

• ISBN13: 9780415358071
• ISBN10: 0415358078
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-08-09
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This book analyses the fictional and critical work of four contemporary Japanese writers: Murakami Haruki, Yoshimoto Banana, Yoshimoto Takaaki and Karatani Kojin. Murakami Fuminobu uses the Euro-American theoretical framework of postmodernism, feminism and postcolonialism to examine the work of these writers and also reconsiders the theory itself from the perspective of Japanese literary work.

Author Biography

Murakami Fuminobu is associate professor in the Department of Japanese Studies at the University of Hong Kong.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	xi
Preface	xii
Introduction: Western ideologies and Japan	1	(19)
Rationality's dubious legitimacy and its oppressive factor	1	(8)
Debate on modernism and postmodernism from the 1980's	9	(2)
Postmodernism, feminism, postcolonialism and Japan	11	(4)
Chapter overview and readership of this book	15	(5)
1 Murakami Haruki's postmodern world	20	(38)
The end of modernity: A Wild Sheep Chase	20	(6)
Lack of mind. The Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World	26	(6)
A love story between postmodern people: Norwegian Wood	32	(12)
A new switch panel in a death chamber: Dance Dance Dance	44	(7)
Violence and empathy: The Wind-up Bird Chronicle and beyond	51	(7)
2 Yoshimoto Banana's feminine family	58	(37)
Food versus sex or kitchen versus bedroom	58	(9)
Oedipus versus Amaterasu	67	(10)
Nostalgia versus castration fantasy	77	(7)
Homosexuality versus heterosexuality	84	(11)
3 Yoshimoto Takaaki and the subaltern	95	(41)
Intellectuals and the people (taishu)	95	(10)
Language, self and ethnicity	105	(10)
A theory of collective fantasy (kyodo genso ron)	115	(9)
African, Asian and European consciousness	124	(12)
4 Karatani Kojin and the intercourse with the Other	136	(28)
Subversion of causal and motivational relations	136	(7)
Philosophy of the Other/exteriority	143	(6)
Singularity and proper name	149	(9)
Towards the place where the violence of unification/discrimination is overcome	158	(6)
Conclusion	164	(5)
Notes	169	(9)
Bibliography	178	(21)
Index	199