Disruptions of Daily Life: Japanese Literary Modernism in the World (Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University)

This book explores the mass-media landscape of the early twentieth cspecific authorsentury to uncover the subversive societal impact of four major Japanese authors: Tanizaki Jun'ichirō, Yokomitsu Riichi, Kawabata Yasunari, and Hirabayashi Taiko. The book examines the literature against global realities through a modernist lens, studying an alternative modernism that challenges the Western European model. Through broad surveys of discussions surrounding Japanese life in the 1920s, the book locates and examines flourishing divergent ideologies of the early twentieth century, such as gender, ethnicity, and nationalism. It unravels how the narrative and linguistic strategies of modernist texts interrogated the innocence of this language, disrupting their hold on people's imagined relationship to daily life. These modernist works often discursively displaced the authority of their own claims by inadvertently exposing the global epistemology of East versus West. The book expands modernism studies into a more translational dialogue by locating subversions within the local historical culture and allowing readers to make connections to the time and place in which the texts were written. In highlighting the unbreakable link between literature and society, it reaffirms the value of modernist fiction and its ability to make us aware of how realities are constructed — and how those realities can be changed.

Disruptions of Daily Life explores the mass media landscape of early twentieth century in order to uncover the subversive societal impact of four major Japanese authors: Tanizaki Jun'ichir?, Yokomitsu Riichi, Kawabata Yasunari, and Hirabayashi Taiko. Arthur Mitchell examines this literature against global realities through a modernist lens, studying an alternative modernism that challenges the Western European model.

Through broad surveys of discussions surrounding Japanese life in the 1920s, Mitchell locates and examines flourishing divergent ideologies of the early twentieth century such as gender, ethnicity, and nationalism. He unravels how the narrative and linguistic strategies of modernist texts interrogated the innocence of this language, disrupting their hold on people's imagined relationship to daily life. These modernist works often discursively displaced the authority of their own claims by inadvertently exposing the global epistemology of East vs. West. Mitchell's reading of these formalist texts expands modernism studies into a more translational dialogue by locating subversions within the local historical culture and allowing readers to make connections to the time and place in which the texts were written.

In highlighting the unbreakable link between literature and society, Disruptions of Daily Life reaffirms the value of modernist fiction and its ability to make us aware of how realities are constructed—and how those realities can be changed.

Disruptions of Daily Life explores the mass media landscape of early twentieth century in order to uncover the subversive societal impact of four major Japanese authors: Tanizaki Jun'ichir, Yokomitsu Riichi, Kawabata Yasunari, and Hirabayashi Taiko. Arthur Mitchell examines this literature against global realities through a modernist lens, studying an alternative modernism that challenges the Western European model. Through broad surveys of discussions surrounding Japanese life in the 1920s, Mitchell locates and examines flourishing divergent ideologies of the early twentieth century such as gender, ethnicity, and nationalism. He unravels how the narrative and linguistic strategies of modernist texts interrogated the innocence of this language, disrupting their hold on people's imagined relationship to daily life. These modernist works often discursively displaced the authority of their own claims by inadvertently exposing the global epistemology of East vs. West. Mitchell's reading of these formalist texts expands modernism studies into a more translational dialogue by locating subversions within the local historical culture and allowing readers to make connections to the time and place in which the texts were written. In highlighting the unbreakable link between literature and society, Disruptions of Daily Life reaffirms the value of modernist fiction and its ability to make us aware of how realities are constructed--and how those realities can be changed. Disruptions of Daily Life explores the mass media landscape of early twentieth century in order to uncover the subversive societal impact of four major Japanese authors: Tanizaki Jun'ichirō, Yokomitsu Riichi, Kawabata Yasunari, and Hirabayashi Taiko. Arthur Mitchell examines this literature against global realities through a modernist lens, studying an alternative modernism that challenges the Western European model. Through broad surveys of discussions surrounding Japanese life in the 1920s, Mitchell locates and examines flourishing divergent ideologies of the early twentieth century such as gender, ethnicity, and nationalism. He unravels how the narrative and linguistic strategies of modernist texts interrogated the innocence of this language, disrupting their hold on people's imagined relationship to daily life. These modernist works often discursively displaced the authority of their own claims by inadvertently exposing the global epistemology of East vs. West. Mitchell's reading of these formalist texts expands modernism studies into a more translational dialogue by locating subversions within the local historical culture and allowing readers to make connections to the time and place in which the texts were written. In highlighting the unbreakable link between literature and society, Disruptions of Daily Life reaffirms the value of modernist fiction and its ability to make us aware of how realities are constructed—and how those realities can be changed. Disruptions of Daily Life' explores the mass media landscape of early twentieth century in order to uncover the subversive societal impact of four major Japanese authors: Tanizaki Jun'ichiro, Yokomitsu Riichi, Kawabata Yasunari, and Hirabayashi Taiko. Arthur Mitchell examines this literature against global realities through a modernist lens, studying an alternative modernism that challenges the Western European model.0Through broad surveys of discussions surrounding Japanese life in the 1920s, Mitchell locates and examines flourishing divergent ideologies of the early twentieth century such as gender, ethnicity, and nationalism. He unravels how the narrative and linguistic strategies of modernist texts interrogated the innocence of this language, disrupting their hold on people's imagined relationship to daily life. These modernist works often discursively displaced the authority of their own claims by inadvertently exposing the global epistemology of East vs. West. Mitchell's reading of these formalist texts expands modernism studies into a more translational dialogue by locating subversions within the local historical culture and allowing readers to make connections to the time and place in which the texts were written. 0In highlighting the unbreakable link between literature and society, 'Disruptions of Daily Life' reaffirms the value of modernist fiction and its ability to make us aware of how realities are constructed-and how those realities can be changed "This book explores the mass media landscape of early 20th century in order to uncover the real-world subversive impact of formalist works by four major Japanese authors-Tanizaki Jun'ichirō, Yokomitsu Riichi, Kawabata Yasunari, and Hirabayashi Taiko. Through broad surveys of discourses surrounding daily life, the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, urban renaissance, and the sexological rhetoric of love and lust, this study locates ideologies of gender, ethnicity, and nation that flourished in the 1920s. Mitchell then shows how the narrative and linguistic strategies of modernist texts interrogated the innocence of this language, discursively displacing the authority of their claims and disrupting their hold upon people's imagined relationship to daily life. Mitchell elaborates an alternative modernism that challenges the primacy of the Western European model by locating modernist subversion within the local historical developments of I-novel reading practices, commodity culture, and the Great Kantō Earthquake. But the book also helps to expand modernism studies into a more translational dialogue by identifying how modernist texts themselves exposed the global epistemology of East vs. West. By rehabilitating the original nexus between literature and society, Mitchell revives and affirms the essential pedagogical function of modernist fiction to make us aware of how our realities are constructed, and thus how those realities can be changed"-- Provided by publisher 'Disruptions of Daily Life' explores the mass-media landscape of the early twentieth cspecific authorsentury to uncover the subversive societal impact of four major Japanese authors: Tanizaki Jun'ichir, Yokomitsu Riichi, Kawabata Yasunari, and Hirabayashi Taiko. The book examines the literature against global realities through a modernist lens, studying an alternative modernism that challenges the Western European model