Japanese literature and film have frequently been approached using lenses such as language, genre and ideology. Yet, despite a succession of major social traumas that have marked, and in many ways shaped and defined much of modern Japan, Japanese fiction and cinema have not often been examined psychoanalytically. In this book, David Stahl conducts in-depth readings and interpretations of a set of Japanese novels and film. By introducing the methodology of trauma/PTSD studies, Stahl seeks to provide a better understanding of the insights of Japanese writers and directors into their societies, cultures and histories. In particular, by building on the work of practitioner-theoreticians, such as Pierre Janet and Judith Herman, Stahl analyses a number of key texts, including Kawabata Yasunari’s Sleeping Beauties (1961), Enchi Fumiko’s Female Masks (1958) and Imamura Sho- hei’s Vengeance is Mine (1979). Consequently, through using concepts of social trauma, dissociation, failed mourning, revenge and narrative memory, this book sheds new light on the psychological aftereffects and transgenerational legacies of trauma depicted in Japanese works. Trauma, Dissociation and Re-enactment in Japanese Literature and Film will be of interest to students and scholars of Japanese Literature and Cinema, as well as those interested in Japanese History and Trauma Studies.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of major works in Japanese literature and film through the interpretive lens of trauma and PTSD studies. Focusing critical attention on the psychodynamics and enduring psychosocial aftereffects of social trauma, it also evaluates the themes of dissociation, failed mourning, and psychological defence fantasies. Building on earlier studies, this book emphasizes the role of protagonists in managing to effect partial recovery by composing memoirs in which they transform dissociated traumatic memory into articulate, narrative memory or bring about advanced recovery by pioneering alternative means of orally communicating, working through, and overcoming debilitating personal histories of traumatization and victimization. In so doing, Stahl also demonstrates that what holds true on the individual and microcosmic level, also does so on the collective and macrocosmic level. This new critical approach sheds important new light on canonical Japanese novels and films and enables recognition and appreciation of integral psychosocial aspects of these traumatic narratives. As such, the book will be of huge interest to students and scholars of Japanese film and literature, as well as those of trauma studies.

This collection focuses on metaphorical as well as temporal and physical border-crossing in writing from and about Japan. With a strong consciousness of gender and socio-historic contexts, contributors to the book adopt an intercultural and interdisciplinary approach to examine the writing of authors whose works break free from the confines of hegemonic Japanese literary endeavour. By demonstrating how the texts analysed step outside the space of ‘Japan’, they accordingly foreground the volatility of textual expression related to that space. The authors discussed include Takahashi Mutsuo and Nagai Kafū, both of whom take literary inspiration from geographical sites outside Japan. Several chapters examine the work of exemplary border-crossing poet, novelist and essayist, Itō Hiromi. There are discussions of the work of Tawada Yōko whose ability to publish in German and Japanese marks her also as a representative writer of border-crossing texts. Two chapters address works by Murakami Haruki who, although clearly affiliating with western cultural form, is rarely discussed in specific border-crossing terms. The chapter on Ainu narratives invokes topics such as translation, indigeneity and myth, while an analysis of Japanese prisoner-of-war narratives notes the language and border-crossing nexus. A vital collection for scholars and students of Japanese literature.

Japanese Studies has provided a fertile space for non-Eurocentric analysis for a number of reasons. It has been embroiled in the long-running internal debate over the so-called Nihonjinron, revolving around the extent to which the effective interpretation of Japanese society and culture requires non-Western, Japan-specific emic concepts and theories. This book takes this question further and explores how we can understand Japanese society and culture by combining Euro-American concepts and theories with those that originate in Japan. Because Japan is the only liberal democracy to have achieved a high level of capitalism outside the Western cultural framework, Japanese Studies has long provided a forum for deliberations about the extent to which the Western conception of modernity is universally applicable. Furthermore, because of Japan’s military, economic and cultural dominance in Asia at different points in the last century, Japanese Studies has had to deal with the issues of Japanocentrism as well as Eurocentrism, a duality requiring complex and nuanced analysis. This book identifies variations amongst Japanese Studies academic communities in the Asia-Pacific and examines the extent to which relatively autonomous scholarship, intellectual approach or theories exist in the region. It also evaluates how studies on Japan in the region contribute to global Japanese Studies and explores their potential for formulating concrete strategies to unsettle Eurocentric dominance of the discipline.

More than any other region in the world, Asia has witnessed tremendous change in the post-war era. A continent once engulfed by independence and revolution, and later by the Cold War and civil war, has now been transformed into the world’s most economically dynamic region. What caused this change in Asia? The key to answering this question lies in the post-war history of maritime Asia and, in particular, the path taken by the maritime nation of Japan. Analysing the importance of Japan’s relationship with Southeast Asia, this book therefore aims to illustrate the hidden trail left by Japan during the period of upheaval that has shaped Asia today—an era marked by the American Cold War strategy, the dissolution of the British Empire in Asia, and the rise of China. It provides a comprehensive account of post-war maritime Asia, making use of internationally sourced primary materials, as well as declassified Japanese government papers. As such, Japan's Quest for Stability in Southeast Asia will be useful to students and scholars of Japanese Politics, Asian Politics and Asian History.

This book provides an historical overview of the Japanese Communist Party from its foundation to the present. It outlines the development of the party, explores its stance on key issues and discusses how the party has set a high moral tone, avoiding compromising coalitions with other parties, being intolerant of corruption within its own ranks, and frequently and consistently opposing the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. The book also considers the internal nature of the party, which continues to have a mass membership, and which in recent years has softened its former somewhat rigid approach. The book emphasizes the importance for Japan of this moral approach as the conscience of the nation, especially as the present Abe government moves Japan to the right, even though the Japanese Communist Party has never gained power and is never likely to.

Japan is not only the oldest society in the world today, but also the oldest society to have ever existed. This aging trend, however, presents many challenges to contemporary Japan, as it permeates all areas of life, from the economy and welfare to social cohesion and population decline. Nobody is more affected by these changes than the young generation. This book studies Japanese youth in the aging society in detail. It analyses formative events and cultural reactions. Themes include employment, parenthood, sexuality, but also art, literature and language, thus demonstrating how the younger generation can provide insights into the future of Japanese society more generally. This book argues that the prolonged crisis resulted in a commonly shared destabilization of thoughts and attitudes and that this has shaped a new generation that is unlike any other in post-war Japan. Presenting an inter-disciplinary approach to the study of the aging trend and what it implies for young Japanese, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Japanese culture and society, as well cultural anthropology and demography.