Olga Kanzaki Sooudi
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824839413
- eISBN:
- 9780824869090
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824839413.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
This chapter offers a “map” of artistic Japanese migrants in New York City. It begins by presenting brief snapshots of some Japanese migrant artists in NYC, who are all members of the so-called ...
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This chapter offers a “map” of artistic Japanese migrants in New York City. It begins by presenting brief snapshots of some Japanese migrant artists in NYC, who are all members of the so-called creative class, and within it work specifically in “supercreative” fields. It then provides a short history of postwar Japanese international travel, along with the history of external migration, particularly of creative people such as artists and intellectuals. It also examines how the mobility of Japanese migrant artists began, and how Japanese came to leave their country in the first place. It shows that contemporary Japanese migrants, particularly the independent artists who go to NYC and other cities, are difficult to categorize. They are at once travelers, sojourners, and migrants, and their time abroad might be characterized as a kind of extended travel.Less
This chapter offers a “map” of artistic Japanese migrants in New York City. It begins by presenting brief snapshots of some Japanese migrant artists in NYC, who are all members of the so-called creative class, and within it work specifically in “supercreative” fields. It then provides a short history of postwar Japanese international travel, along with the history of external migration, particularly of creative people such as artists and intellectuals. It also examines how the mobility of Japanese migrant artists began, and how Japanese came to leave their country in the first place. It shows that contemporary Japanese migrants, particularly the independent artists who go to NYC and other cities, are difficult to categorize. They are at once travelers, sojourners, and migrants, and their time abroad might be characterized as a kind of extended travel.
W. Puck Brecher
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824836665
- eISBN:
- 9780824871116
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824836665.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
Eccentric artists are “the vagaries of humanity” that inhabit the deviant underside of Japanese society: This was the conclusion drawn by pre-World War II commentators on most early modern Japanese ...
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Eccentric artists are “the vagaries of humanity” that inhabit the deviant underside of Japanese society: This was the conclusion drawn by pre-World War II commentators on most early modern Japanese artists. Postwar scholarship, as it searched for evidence of Japan's modern roots, concluded the opposite: The eccentric, mad, and strange are moral exemplars, paragons of virtue, and shining hallmarks of modern consciousness. In recent years, the pendulum has swung again, this time in favor of viewing these oddballs as failures and dropouts without lasting cultural significance. This book corrects the disciplinary (and exclusionary) nature of such interpretations by reconsidering the sudden and dramatic emergence of aesthetic eccentricity during the Edo period (1600–1868). It explains how, throughout the period, eccentricity (ki) and madness (kyō) developed and proliferated as subcultural aesthetics, and it demonstrates that individualism and strangeness carried considerable moral and cultural value. The book concludes that a confluence of intellectual, aesthetic, and social conditions enabled multiple concurrent heterodoxies to crystallize around strangeness as a prominent cultural force in Japanese society. Its coverage of the entire Edo period and engagement with both Chinese and native Japanese traditions reinterprets Edo-period tastes and perceptions of normalcy.Less
Eccentric artists are “the vagaries of humanity” that inhabit the deviant underside of Japanese society: This was the conclusion drawn by pre-World War II commentators on most early modern Japanese artists. Postwar scholarship, as it searched for evidence of Japan's modern roots, concluded the opposite: The eccentric, mad, and strange are moral exemplars, paragons of virtue, and shining hallmarks of modern consciousness. In recent years, the pendulum has swung again, this time in favor of viewing these oddballs as failures and dropouts without lasting cultural significance. This book corrects the disciplinary (and exclusionary) nature of such interpretations by reconsidering the sudden and dramatic emergence of aesthetic eccentricity during the Edo period (1600–1868). It explains how, throughout the period, eccentricity (ki) and madness (kyō) developed and proliferated as subcultural aesthetics, and it demonstrates that individualism and strangeness carried considerable moral and cultural value. The book concludes that a confluence of intellectual, aesthetic, and social conditions enabled multiple concurrent heterodoxies to crystallize around strangeness as a prominent cultural force in Japanese society. Its coverage of the entire Edo period and engagement with both Chinese and native Japanese traditions reinterprets Edo-period tastes and perceptions of normalcy.
William E. Naff
J. Thomas Rimer (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824832186
- eISBN:
- 9780824871673
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824832186.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
The author of this book, a scholar of Japanese literature widely known and highly regarded for his translations of the writings of Shimazaki Tōson (1872–1943), spent the last years of his life ...
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The author of this book, a scholar of Japanese literature widely known and highly regarded for his translations of the writings of Shimazaki Tōson (1872–1943), spent the last years of his life writing a full-length biography of Tōson. Virtually completed at the time of his death, this book provides a rich and colorful account of this canonic novelist who, along with Natsume Sōseki and Mori Ōgai, formed the triumvirate of writers regarded as giants in Japan during the Meiji period, all three of whom helped establish the parameters of modern Japanese literature. This biography places Tōson in the context of his times and discusses every aspect of his career and personal life, as well as introducing in detail a number of his important but as yet untranslated works. Tōson's long life, his many connections with other important Japanese artists and intellectuals, his sojourn in France during World War I, and his later visit to South America, permit a biography of depth and detail that serves as a kind of cultural history of Japan during an often turbulent period. With Tōson himself as its complex protagonist, this book is arguably the most thorough account of any modern Japanese writer presently available in English.Less
The author of this book, a scholar of Japanese literature widely known and highly regarded for his translations of the writings of Shimazaki Tōson (1872–1943), spent the last years of his life writing a full-length biography of Tōson. Virtually completed at the time of his death, this book provides a rich and colorful account of this canonic novelist who, along with Natsume Sōseki and Mori Ōgai, formed the triumvirate of writers regarded as giants in Japan during the Meiji period, all three of whom helped establish the parameters of modern Japanese literature. This biography places Tōson in the context of his times and discusses every aspect of his career and personal life, as well as introducing in detail a number of his important but as yet untranslated works. Tōson's long life, his many connections with other important Japanese artists and intellectuals, his sojourn in France during World War I, and his later visit to South America, permit a biography of depth and detail that serves as a kind of cultural history of Japan during an often turbulent period. With Tōson himself as its complex protagonist, this book is arguably the most thorough account of any modern Japanese writer presently available in English.
Timon Screech
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816680498
- eISBN:
- 9781452948706
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816680498.003.0005
- Subject:
- Art, Visual Culture
This chapter focuses on Hokusai, known internationally as the Japanese artist par excellence. His “Great Wave off Kanagawa,” from the series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei), is ...
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This chapter focuses on Hokusai, known internationally as the Japanese artist par excellence. His “Great Wave off Kanagawa,” from the series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei), is one of the world’s most widely recognized works. Hokusai also forms part of the narrative of self-validation that is Japan’s “opening,” modernization, and equalization with Europe and North America. In 1834, Hokusai published his biggest project, One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku hyakkei), in three volumes. The set does not just take up the topography and history of the mountain but also considers acts of looking, representing, and indeed reflecting it.Less
This chapter focuses on Hokusai, known internationally as the Japanese artist par excellence. His “Great Wave off Kanagawa,” from the series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei), is one of the world’s most widely recognized works. Hokusai also forms part of the narrative of self-validation that is Japan’s “opening,” modernization, and equalization with Europe and North America. In 1834, Hokusai published his biggest project, One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku hyakkei), in three volumes. The set does not just take up the topography and history of the mountain but also considers acts of looking, representing, and indeed reflecting it.
