Tokyo in Transit : Japanese Culture on the Rails and Road

This work discusses literary depictions of mass transit in 20th century Tokyo in the decades preceding WWII. It cuts across literary and historical/sociological analysis, and contributes to the growing body of work examining Japanese urbanism, gender, and modernism. Increased use of mass transportation in the early twentieth century enabled men and women of different social classes to interact in ways they had not before. Using a cultural studies approach that combines historical research and literary analysis, author Alisa Freedman investigates fictional, journalistic, and popular culture depictions of how mass transportation changed prewar Tokyo's social fabric and artistic movements, giving rise to gender roles that have come to characterize modern Japan. Freedman persuasively argues that, through descriptions of trains and buses, stations, transport workers, and passengers, Japanese authors responded to contradictions in Tokyo's urban modernity and exposed the effects of rapid change on the individual. She shines a light on how prewar transport culture anticipates what is fascinating and frustrating about Tokyo today, providing insight into how people make themselves at home in the city. An approachable and enjoyable book, Tokyo in Transit offers an exciting ride through modern Japanese literature and culture, and includes the first English translation of Kawabata Yasunari's The Corpse Introducer , a 1929 crime novella that presents an important new side of its Nobel Prizewinning author. Increased use of mass transportation in the early twentieth century enabled men and women of different social classes to interact in ways they had not before. The author investigates fictional, journalistic, and popular culture depictions of how mass transportation changed prewar Tokyo's social fabric and artistic movements, giving rise to gender roles that have come to characterize modern Japan. She argues that, through descriptions of trains and buses, stations, transport workers, and passengers, Japanese authors responded to contradictions in Tokyo's urban modernity and exposed the effects of rapid change on the individual. She shows how prewar transport culture anticipates what is fascinating and frustrating about Tokyo today, providing insight into how people make themselves at home in the city Tokyo On The Rails And Road : Mass Transportation As Cultural And Social Vehicles -- Eyewitness Accounts : Observations Of Salarymen And Schoolgirls On Tokyo's First Trains -- Boys Who Feared Trains : University Students, Railway Trauma, And The Health Of The Nation -- Shinjuku Station Sketches : Constructing An Icon Of Modern Daily Life -- From Modern Girls In Motion To Figures Of Nostalgia : Bus Girls In The Popular Imagination -- The Corpse Introducer / By Kawabata Yasunari ; Translated By Alisa Freedman And Hiroko Minami. Alisa Freedman. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: Tokyo on the Rails and Road: Mass Transportation as Cultural and Social Vehicles 1. Eyewitness Accounts: Observations of Salarymen and Schoolgirls on Tokyo’s First Trains 2. Boys Who Feared Trains: University Students, Railway Trauma, and the Health of the Nation 3. Shinjuku Station Sketches: Constructing an Icon of Modern Daily Life 4. From Modern Girls in Motion to Figures of Nostalgia: “Bus Girls” in the Popular Imagination The Corpse Introducer by Kawabata Yasunari Notes Bibliography Index