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Full Description
This edited volume assembles a wide array of writings by Hirabayashi Hatsunosuke, one of 20th-century Japan's foremost intellectuals, translated for the first time into English. It begins with an introduction by the editors, Seth Jacobowitz and Aaron William Moore, that contextualizes Hirabayashi's significance as a non-doctrinaire Marxist cultural critic, visionary thinker, and much-beloved popular fiction writer. The 'Short Stories', features a selection of Hirabayashi's literary work, including science fiction ('The Artificial Human'), detective fiction ('This is How I Died!'), and more idiosyncratic works such as 'Demon at the Pulpit', an antitheist and anticlerical story.
The 'Essays' provides a range of groundbreaking critical and theoretical tracts that address such topics as 'The Social Basis of Modernism', 'The Feminisation of Culture', 'Political Value and Artistic Value: A Re-Appraisal of Marxist Literary Theory', 'Film as a Mechanism of Americanization', 'The Technological Revolution in Literature and the Arts', and many more. Hirabayashi's systematic approach to cultural theory befitting the era of massification in the 1920s places him front and centre in the hothouse intellectual climate of pre-war Japan. It also affords striking parallels to the leading thinkers in Europe such as Walter Benjamin and Antonio Gramsci, thereby forming an integral part of the history of global modernity.
Contents
Editors' Introduction: Hirabayashi Hatsunosuke and Modern Japan's Mass Culture
Short Stories
1. The Artificial Human, Seth Jacobowitz (Apr. 1928)
2. The Devil's Altar, Rebecca Suter (Jan. 1927)
3. A Night at the Zoo, Seth Jacobowitz (Oct. 1928)
4. This Is How I Died! Seth Jacobowitz (Jun. 1929)
5. Mystery Woman, Gabriel Fernandes (Jan. 1932)
The Essays
I. Social Criticism and the Cultural Sciences
6. The Embodiment of the Modern Era, Yingzi Feng (Jan. 1929)
7. The Social Basis of Modernism, Yingzi Feng (Mar. 1929)
8. The Problem of the Cultural Sciences, Christopher Perkins (Jan. 1927)
9. The Limits of So-Called 'Scientific Criticism', Edwin Michielsen (Nov. 1930)
10. The Objective of the Women's Movement, Aaron William Moore (Aug. 1922)
11. The Feminisation of Culture, Jorinde Wels (Apr. 1926)
12. The Social Duty of Youth Groups, Aaron William Moore (n.d.)
II. Literary Theory and Proletarian Culture
13. Literature of the Fourth Class, Edwin Michielsen (Nov. 1921)
14. The Arts of the Proletariat, Edwin Michielsen (Jun. 1922)
15. The Scope of What I Can Know, Christopher Perkins (Jan. 1923)
16. Self-Reflection, Christopher Perkins (Oct. 1925)
17. The Essence of Literature, Parts 1 and 2, James Dorsey (Mar. 1927)
18. Theorising Depictions of Psychology in Fiction, Aaron William Moore (Apr. 1929)
19. Political Value and Artistic Value: A Re-examination of Marxist Literary Theory, Stefano Romagnoli (Apr. 1929)
III. Popular Literature and Genre Fiction
20. The Genius of Popular Literature, Gala Maria Follaco (Jul. 1925)
21. On Popular Literature, Gala Maria Follaco (Mar. 1929 - Feb. 1930)
22. The Modern Novel as Commodity, Nathan Shockey (May 1929)
23. Modern Japanese Detective Stories: On Edogawa Rampo in Particular, Seth Jacobowitz (Apr. 1925)
24. A Personal View on Agrarian Literature, Seth Jacobowitz (May 1929)
IV. Film and Media Theory
25. Film as a Mechanism of Americanisation, Aaron William Moore (Feb. 1929)
26. On Reality in the Arts, Giuseppe Strippoli (Aug. 1930)
27. The Technological Revolution in Literature and the Arts, Seth Jacobowitz (Jan. 1928)
28. Literature Fifty Years in the Future, Aaron William Moore (Mar. 1928)
Index
