Dynamics of Alterity - Texts by Yoko Tawada in the Perspective of Studies on Difference

This volume offers the first comprehensive analysis of Yoko Tawada's German-language works and selected translations from Japanese, approached through the perspective of studies on difference. Drawing on interdisciplinary methodologies, including poststructuralism and posthumanism, it explores the dynamics of alterity - nomadic narratives, water, transformation, transgression and migration - as key motifs in Tawada's novels, essays, poetry, and plays. The dynamics of alterity permeate binary entanglements of the external and internal worlds, they do not reproduce the clash of thesis and antithesis or affirm negativity. They offer a way to step outside the limitations of dichotomous logic.

About the author

Dr Julia Sowacka is a cultural and literary scholar. She graduated in German Studies at the University of Warsaw, Poland. Since March 2023, she has been a research assistant at the Department of Cultural Studies at Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland. In 2024, she was awarded a doctorate with honours from the University of Warsaw for her dissertation. Her research focuses on literary in-between spaces, with particular attention to 20th- and 21st-century German literature, poststructuralism, and posthumanism.

Product details

• Authors: Julia Sowacka, Julia (Dr.) Sowacka
• Publisher: V&R unipress
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 20.04.2026
• EAN: 9783847119609
• ISBN: 978-3-8471-1960-9
• Illustrations: with 4 figures
• Series: Culture - Environment - Society / Humanities and beyond; Culture - Environment - Society; Culture – Environment – Society
• Subject: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > Other languages / Other literatures