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Informationen zum Autor Maeda Ai Klappentext Maeda Ai was a prominent literary critic and an influential public intellectual in late-twentieth-century Japan. Text and the City is the first book of his work to appear in English. A literary and cultural critic deeply engaged with European critical thought, Maeda was a brilliant, insightful theorist of modernity for whom the city was the embodiment of modern life. He conducted a far-reaching inquiry into changing conceptions of space, temporality, and visual practices as they gave shape to the city and its inhabitants. James A. Fujii has assembled a selection of Maeda's essays that question and explore the contours of Japanese modernity and resonate with the concerns of literary and cultural studies today.Maeda remapped the study of modern Japanese literature and culture in the 1970s and 1980s, helping to generate widespread interest in studying mass culture on the one hand and marginalized sectors of modern Japanese society on the other. These essays reveal the broad range of Maeda's cultural criticism. Among the topics considered are Tokyo; utopias; prisons; visual media technologies including panoramas and film; the popular culture of the Edo, Meiji, and contemporary periods; maps; women's magazines; and women writers. Integrally related to these discussions are Maeda's readings of works of Japanese literature including Matsubara Iwagoro's In Darkest Tokyo, Nagai Kafu's The Fox, Higuchi Ichiyo's Growing Up, Kawabata Yasunari's The Crimson Gang of Asakusa, and Narushima Ryuhoku's short story "Useless Man." Illuminating the infinitely rich phenomena of modernity, these essays are full of innovative, unexpected connections between cultural productions and urban life, between the text and the city. Zusammenfassung The first translation into English of essays on modern Japanese literature! culture! and urban ethnography written by the late Ai Maeda! arguably the most prominent 20th century Japanese literary and cultural critic Inhaltsverzeichnis Acknowledgments vii Foreword: A Walker in the City: Maeda Ai and the Mapping of Urban Space / Harry Harootunian xi Introduction: Refiguring the Modern: Maeda Ai and the City / James A Fujii 1 LIGHT CITY, DARK CITY: VISUALIZING THE MODERN>1. Utopia of the Prisonhouse: A Reading of In Darkest Tokyo / Seiji M. Lippit and James A. Fujii 21 2. The Panorama of Enlightenment / Henry D. Smith II 65 3. The Spirits of Abandoned Gardens: On Nagai Kafu’s “The Fox” / William F. Sibley 91 PLAY, SPACE, AND MASS CULTURE 4. Their Time as Children: A Study of Higuchi Ichiyo’s Growing Up (Takekurabe) / Edward Fowler 109 5. Asakusa as Theater Kawabata Yasunari’s The Crimson Gang of Asakusa / Edward Fowler 145 6. The Development of Popular Fiction in the Late Taisho Era: Increasing Readership of Women’s Magazines / Rebecca Copeland 163 TEXT, SPACE, VISUALITY 7. From Communal Performance to Solitary Reading: The Rise of the Modern Japanese Reader / James A. Fujii 223 8. Modern Literature and the World of Printing / Richard Okada 255 CROSSING BOUNDARIES IN URBAN SPACE 9. Ryuhoku in Paris / Matthew Fraleigh 275 10. Berlin 1888: Mori Ogai’s “Dancing Girl” / Leslie Pincus 295 11. In the Recesses of the High City: On Soseki’s Gate / William F. Sibley 329 Afterword / Wiliam F. Sibley 351 Contributors 375 Index 377...
