Research Catalog

Title

Playing in the shadows : fictions of race and blackness in postwar Japanese literature / Will Bridges.

Author

Bridges, William H., 1983-

Publication

• Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2020.
• ©2020

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

viii, 296 pages : illustrations; 23 cm.

Summary

"Playing in the Shadows explores the body of literature arising from post-World War II Japanese authors' robust cultural exchanges with African Americans and African Americana. Rather than solely focusing on representations of African Americans in Japanese literature, this manuscript argues that the black characters who rise to the textual surface are just the tip of the signifying iceberg. Beneath those representations -- or, as Professor Bridges argues, even in the absence of overt representations of black characters, there runs a rich history of Afro-Japanese literary and cultural exchange, as well as a history characterized by cross-cultural-pollination and creative experimentation that spans the Pacific. By tracing how blackness is written in and into Japanese literature, this book argues that fictions of race provide visions of the way that postwar Japanese authors reimagine the ascription of race to bodies: in bodies of literature, the body politic, or the human body itself"--

Series Statement

Michigan monograph series in Japanese studies ; number 88

Uniform Title

Michigan monograph series in Japanese studies ; no. 88.

Alternative Title

Fictions of race and blackness in postwar Japanese literature

Subject

• Since 1926
• Japanese fiction > Shōwa period, 1926-1989 > History and criticism
• Literature and race > Japan
• Race in literature
• Black people in literature
• Japanese fiction > American influences
• African Americans > Relations with Japanese
• Civilization > American influences
• Intellectual life
• Japanese fiction > Shōwa period
• Literature and race
• Japan > Intellectual life > 1945-
• Japan > Civilization > American influences
• Japan

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Introduction: Playing in the shadows, fictions of race, and blackness in postwar Japanese literature -- Unspeakable things unspoken: Moments of silence, racial preoccupation, and the hauntology of blackness in the literature of occupied Japan -- In the beginning: Ōe Kenzaburō and the creative nonfiction of blackness -- Of passing significance: Pronominal politics, Nakagami Kenji, and the fiction of "Burakuness" -- Genre trouble: Breaking the law of genre and literary blackness in the long 19702 -- Japanese literature in the age of hip hop: A mic check -- Conclusion: Parallax vision and playing in the shadows--elsewhere and otherwise.

Call Number

Sc E 22-895

ISBN

• 9780472074426
• 0472074423
• 9780472054428
• 0472054422

LCCN

2019032054

OCLC

1107343502

Author

Bridges, William H., 1983- author.

Title

Playing in the shadows : fictions of race and blackness in postwar Japanese literature / Will Bridges.

Publisher

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2020.

Copyright Date

©2020

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Michigan monograph series in Japanese studies ; number 88

Michigan monograph series in Japanese studies ; no. 88.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Chronological Term

Since 1926

Research Call Number

Sc E 22-895

JFE 21-4541