Literature among the Ruins, 1945-1955

Atsuko Ueda is associate professor of modern Japanese literature at Princeton University.Michael K. Bourdaghs is Robert S. Ingersoll Professor in East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago.Richi Sakakibara is professor of modern Japanese literature at Waseda University.Hirokazu Toeda is professor of modern Japanese literature at Waseda University.

This collection examines literary criticism in postwar Japan. The contributors analyze the debates that occurred among Japanese intellectuals and highlight the various ideological forces that shaped the country's postwar trajectory.

Introduction, Atsuko Ueda, Richi Sakakibara, Michael K. Bourdaghs, and Hirokazu ToedaPart I: Foregrounding the Cold WarChapter 1: Early Freeze Warning: The Politics and Literature Debate as Cold War Culture, Michael K. BourdaghsChapter 2: The Korean War and Disputed Memories: Kim Dal-su's Nihon no fuyu and the 1955 System, Ko Youngran, translated by Michael K. BourdaghsChapter 3: Politics and Culture of Fascism, Ann SherifPart II: Structures of Concealment: Cultural AnxietiesChapter 4: Cultural Resentment and Valorization in Postwar Japanese Literary Criticism: Nakamura Mitsuo's Literary History, Atsuko UedaChapter 5: Small Hopes and a Terror: Kat¿ Sh¿ichi's and Mori Arimasa's 1955 Return from France, Doug SlaymakerChapter 6: Language and the People: The Amateur Writing Subject in Kindai bungaku, Shin Nihon bungaku, and Shis¿ no kagaku, Richi Sakakibara, translated by Atsuko UedaPart III: Continuity and Discontinuity: Subjective Rupture and DislocationChapter 7: Temporalities of Ruin: Shiina Rinz¿ and the Subject of Tenk¿, Seiji M. LippitChapter 8: Literature at War's End: The Prosecution of Writers in Bungaku jihy¿, James DorseyChapter 9: From the God of Literature to War Criminal: The Media and the Shifting Image of Yokomitsu Riichi from Prewar and Wartime to the Postwar Era, Toeda Hirokazu, translated by Atsuko Ueda