1st Edition
Japan's Postwar
Historical surveys of postwar Japan are usually established on the grounds that the era is already over, interpreting "postwar" to be the years directly proceeding World War II. However, the contributors to this book take a unique approach to the concept of the postwar epoch and treat it as a network of historical time frames from the modern period, and connect these time capsules to the war to which they are inextricably linked. The books strength is in its very interdisciplinary approach to examining postwar Japan and as such it includes chapters centred on subjects as diverse as politics, poetry, philosophy, economics and art which serve to fill the blanks in the collective cultural memory that historical narratives leave behind.
Originally published in French, this new translation offers the English speaking world important access to a major work on Japan which has been greatly enriched by the translator’s great accuracy and knowledge of English, French and Japanese language, history and culture.
Japan's Postwar will appeal to students and scholars of Japanese Studies and Modern Japanese History as well as historians studying the world after 1945.
Introduction, Michael Lucken I. The Multiplicity of Chronologies, or The Postwar Contested 1. The Postwar as a Political Paradigm, Eric Seizelet 2. The Evolution of the Concept of ‘Postwar Education’, Christian Galan II. Intellectuals Facing the Future 3. Maruyama Masao, From Autonomy to Pacifism, Jacques Joly 4. In the Time, after the Defeat: Sakaguchi Ango, Takeda Taijun, Takeuchi Yoshimi (1946-1948), Emmanuel Lozerand 5. Yasuoka Masahiro, a Conservative Vision of the Postwar, Eddy Dufourmont III. How Should One Speak? The Poets’ Response 6. ‘Genzai’, Here and Now: Notes for a Reflection on the Values of the ‘Present’ in the Poetry of Tamura Ryūichi and of Ayukawa Nobuo, Karine Arneodo 7. Speaking Silence: The Poetry of Ishihara Yoshirō, Makiko Andro-Ueda IV. Forgetting, Commemoration, Diversion: The Regimes of Memory 8. The Literary Institution and the Case of the Akutagawa Prize, Anne Bayard-Sakai 9. The Peace Statue in Nagasaki, Michael Lucken 10. Repression of History and Engagement of Bodies: Birth of Action Art at the Beginning of the 1960s, Anne Gossot V. Complex Experiences: Society on the Road to Democracy 11. The ‘Red Purges’ and the Democratisation of Japan, 1949-1962, Brice Fauconnier 12. Labour Relations during the Years of High Growth , Bernard Thomann 13. The Postwar for Workers’ Unionism and Movements against Industrial Pollution, Paul Jobin Appendix Chronology, 1937-2010
Biography
Michael Lucken is Professor at the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, France.
Anne Bayard-Sakai is Professor and literary specialist at Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, France.
Emmanuel Lozerand is Professor of Japanese language and literature at Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, France.
"Arthur Stockwin deserves commendation on his fine and eminently readable translation of the volume from the original French... The authors represented here enrich our knowledge on a number of fronts by drawing links between war and after, and thereby suggest different understandings and approaches of how to conceptualise and periodise postwar Japan." - Erik Ropers, Towson University; Japanese Studies (Australia), vol. 32, no. 4, December 2012.
