The Red Years : Theory, Politics, and Aesthetics in the Japanese '68

Japan: The "other," lesser-known 1968 The analysis of May 68 in Paris, Berkeley, and the Western world has been widely reconsidered. But 1968 is not only a year that conjures up images of Paris, Frankfurt, or Milan: it is also the pivotal year for a new anti-colonial and anti-capitalist politicsto erupt across the Third World, a crucial and central moment in the history, thought, and politics of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. Japan's position -- neither in "the West" nor in the "Third World" --provoked a complex and intense round of mass mobilizations through the 1960s and early 70s. Although the "'68 revolutions" of the Global North -- Western Europe and North America -- are widely known, the Japanese situation remains remarkably under-examined globally. Beginning in the late 1950s, a New Left, independent of the prewar Japanese communist moment (itself of major historical importance in the 1920s and 30s), came to produce one of the most vibrant decades of political organization, political thought, and political aesthetics in the global twentieth century. In the present volume, major thinkers of the Left in Japan alongside scholars of the 1968 movements reexamine the theoretical sources, historical background, cultural productions, and major organizational problems of the 1968 revolutions in Japan. "The analysis of May 68 in Paris, Berkeley, and the Western world has been widely reconsidered. But 1968 is not only a year that conjures up images of Paris, Frankfurt, or Milan: it is also the pivotal year for a new anti-colonial and anti-capitalist politics to erupt across the Third World, a crucial and central moment in the history, thought, and politics of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. Japan's position -- neither in "the West" nor in the "Third World" -provoked a complex and intense round of mass mobilizations through the 1960s and early 70s. Although the "'68 revolutions" of the Global North -- Western Europe and North America -- are widely known, the Japanese situation remains remarkably under-examined globally.Beginning in the late 1950s, a New Left, independent of the prewar Japanese communist moment (itself of major historical importance in the 1920s and 30s), came to produce one of the most vibrant decades of political organization, political thought, and political aesthetics in the global twentieth century. In the present volume, major thinkers of the Left in Japan alongside scholars of the 1968 movements reexamine the theoretical sources, historical background, cultural productions, and major organizational problems of the 1968 revolutions in Japan" The analysis of May 68 in Paris, Berkeley, and the Western world has been widely reconsidered. But 1968 is not only a year that conjures up images of Paris, Frankfurt, or Milan. It is also the pivotal year for a new anti-colonial and anti-capitalist politics to erupt across the Third World - Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. Japan's position - neither in'the West'nor in the'Third World'-provoked a complex and intense round of mass mobilizations through the 1960s and early 70s. The Japanese situation remains remarkably under-examined globally. Beginning in the late 1950s, a New Left, independent of the prewar Japanese communist moment (itself of major historical importance in the 1920s and 30s), came to produce one of the most vibrant decades of political organization, political thought, and political aesthetics in the global twentieth century. In the present volume, major thinkers of the Left in Japan alongside scholars of the 1968 movements reexamine the theoretical sources, historical background, cultural productions, and major organizational problems of the 1968 revolutions in Japan. Cover Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Note on the Text 1. Revolution and Retrospection 2. On the Japanese ’68 3. The Ethics of the Agitator: On Hiroshi Nagasaki’s The Phenomenology of Politics 4. The Perception of Violence, the Violence of Perception, and the Origins of Japan’s 1968 5. ’68 and the Japanese Women’s Liberation Movement 6. 1968 and the Postwar Regime of Emperor-System Democracy 7. The Japanese Communist Party since 1968: Between Revolution and Reform 8. Human Liberation or “Male Romance”? The Gendered Everyday of the Student New Left 9. The Undercurrent of Art and Politics in the 1960s: On Gendai Shichōsha 10. 1972: The Structure on the Streets 11. Night and Fog in Japan: Toward Another Critique of Violence 12. The Post-’68 Conjuncture Notes Notes on contributors Bibliography Index