Read more
This book takes the unique approach of combining cognitive approaches with more established close-reading methods in analysing a selection of Japanese novels and a film.
They are by four well-known male authors and a director (Natsume Sôseki, Shiga Naoya, Ôe Kenzaburô, Ibuse Masuji and Imamura Shôhei) and five female authors (Kirino Natsuo, Kawakami Mieko, Murata Sayaka, Tsushima Yûko, and Ishimure Michiko) from the early twentieth century up to the early millennium. It approaches the different artistic strategies that oscillate between emotional immersion and critical reflection. Inspired by new developments in cognitive theory and neuroscience, the book seeks to put a spotlight on the aspects of modern Japanese novels that were not fully appreciated earlier; the eclectic and fluid nature of the novel as a form, and the vital roles played by affects and emotions often complicated under the impact of trauma.
Rejuvenating previously established cultural theories through a cognitive and emotional lens (narratology, genre theory, historicism, cultural study, gender theory, and ecocriticism), this book will appeal to students and scholars of modern literature and Japanese literature.
List of contents
Introduction Part I: Sensibility and Genre 1. Natsume Sôseki's Narrative Experiments: From Shaseibun to Light and Dark 2. Shiga Naoya's Shishôsetsu: From 'Infatuation' to A Dark Night's Passing Part II: Affect and Emotion 3. Disorienting Affect in Natsume Sôseki's Kokoro 4. Ôe Kenzaburô's The Silent Cry Revisited Through Affect Theory 5. Speech Acts and Emotion in Kirino Natsuo's Grotesque 6. Cruel Optimism in Kawakami Mieko's Breasts and Eggs and Murata Sayaka's Convenient Store Woman Part III: Historical Trauma and Representation 7. Ibuse Masuji's Black Rain and Imamura Shôhei's Film Adaptation 8. Intertextual Time Machine: Tsushima Yûko's Laughing Wolf and Ôe Kenzaburô's Children of Two Hundred Years 9. Ethics of Care in Ishimure Michiko's Villages of the Gods Conclusion
About the author
Reiko Abe Auestad is Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Oslo, Norway.
Summary
This book takes the unique approach of combining cognitive approaches with more established close-reading methods in analyzing a selection of Japanese novels.
