Promotional Information

This is a stunning collection of essays in contemporary Japanese thought and politics. It will immeasurably raise the bar in Japanese studies -- Mark Anderson, University of Minnesota This collection of essays [as it stands] captures a very important aspect of contemporary thought in Japan, and represents, along with figures like Karatani Kojin, Naoki Sakai and Ueno Chizuko that are well-known in both Japan and the United States, a number of figures new to English translation who ought to be known in any global enterprise of theory. It is potentially an important intervention. -- Joseph Murphy, University of Florida, author of Metaphorical Circuit: Negotiations Between Literature and Science in 20th-Century Japan Accompanied by Richard Calichman's masterful introduction, Contemporary Japanese Thought presents in translation some of the most compelling recent theoretical work-ranging from analyses of neonationalism to feminism to everyday fears of exclusion and teasing-from Japan. There is nothing like this in English. It is a singular and indispensable collection, one that reveals a vital conjoining of thought and political reflection in its contributions. -- Marilyn Ivy, Columbia University, Discourses of the Vanishing: Modernity, Phantasm, Japan

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction, by Richard F. Calichman 1. Ehara Yumiko The Politics of Teasing A Feminist View of Maruyama Masao's Modernity 2. Kang Sangjung The Imaginary Geography of a Nation and Denationalized Narrative The Discovery of the "Orient" and Orientalism 3. Karatani Ko Jin Overcoming Modernity Soseki's Diversity: On Kokoro 4. Nishitani Osamu The Wonderland of "Immortality" 5. Naoki Sakai Two Negations: The Fear of Being Excluded and the Logic of Self-Esteem 6. Takahashi Tetsuya Japanese Neo-Nationalism: A Critique of Kato Norihiro's "After the Defeat" Discourse From the Hinomaru and Kimigayo to the Symbolic Emperor System 7. Ueno Chizuko In the Feminine Guise: A Trap of Reverse Orientalism Collapse of "Japanese Mothers" 8. Ukai Satoshi Colonialism and Modernity Reflections Beyond the Flag: Why Is the Hinomaru Flag "Auspicious/Foolish"? Glossary List of Contributors Index of Names

About the Author

Richard F. Calichman is assistant professor of Japanese studies at the City College of New York, CUNY. He is the author of Takeuchi Yoshimi: Displacing the West and the editor and translator of What Is Modernity? Writings of Takeuchi Yoshimi (Columbia). He lives in New York City.

Reviews

"Important for making accessible to Western audiences not only the existence but the richness of the theoretical debates taking place within a non-Western society." -- Chikako Endo,, H-Net "The book deserves to be widely read beyond (as well as within) the bounds of Japanese studies" -- Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Japanese Studies "[Calichman has] rendered us a tremendous service. This collection makes a powerful first step toward filling a definite need." -- Michael K. Bourdaghs, Philosophy East & West