Papers by Jeff Long
Japanese Studies, 2021
Writing in the early 1960s, literary critic Hirano Ken argued that writer Hayashi Fusao became th... more Writing in the early 1960s, literary critic Hirano Ken argued that writer Hayashi Fusao became the Japan Proletarian Writers’ League’s (Nihon Puroretaria Sakka Dōmei) ‘greatest enemy’, following his romantic interpretation of the Meiji Restoration in his historical novel Seinen (Youth). Hirano asserted that Hayashi questioned the Marxist interpretation of the Meiji Restoration, in hopes of challenging the leadership of the Writers’ League. Hirano maintains that this confrontation eventually led to the dissolution of the proletarian literature movement. Thus, here we first examine the initial criticism of Seinen by Kamei Katsuichirō and Tokunaga Sunao, followed by an analysis of the increasingly scathing condemnations of Hayashi’s historical novel by Kobayashi Takiji, Miyamoto Kenji, and finally a vitriolic and particularly mocking piece by Miyamoto Yuriko. Next, we review Hayashi’s response to this criticism, and end by considering appraisals of the confrontation: first, from a cont...
Japan Forum, 2007
Abstract In the fall of 1936 after publicly announcing his decision to withdraw from the proletar... more Abstract In the fall of 1936 after publicly announcing his decision to withdraw from the proletarian literature movement, Hayashi Fusao (1903–75), one of Japan's best-known literati of the day, produced a decidedly ‘proletarian’ short story using literature to chronicle the lost voices of political dissent in early Showa Japan (1926–45). A study of Hayashi's ‘Album’ underscores the continued struggle of many literary men to convey their intellectual concerns in a time of rising militarism. It also challenges the usage of tenkō as a conceptual means of comprehending the intellectual community's support of the government during the 1930s.
Tenkō: Cultures of Political Conversion in Transwar Japan
History: Reviews of New Books
arship on other parts of northeast India shaped by a similar combination of socio-cultural and po... more arship on other parts of northeast India shaped by a similar combination of socio-cultural and political factors. A comparatively and theoretically engaged conversation with Indrani Chatterjee and Bodhisattva Kar’s research on the formation and impact of colonially constituted districts in northeast India or with Vibha Joshi’s study of Christianity in Nagaland, among others, would have been useful to better situate the case of Mizoram in the region at large. Furthermore, in spite of the many images included in the publication, the aesthetics of the images and the politics that visuality brings to bear on the study of history remain largely unaddressed in this book. Instead, we are presented with a historical study that principally highlights images as documents that bear the trace of politics unfolding elsewhere. A greater investment in debates from the study of art and visual culture in South Asia could have expanded the examination of the visual record beyond its worth as evidence. Even so, the present study stands to be of considerable value to visual studies specialists for the remarkably wide variety of images it manages to bring together. Scholars of colonial and postcolonial northeast India would also find it a useful companion for the study of Christianity, indigeneity, separatist nationalism, mass media, and popular culture.
Journal of World History, 2010
Routledge, 2021
Shimaki Kensaku (1903-1945) emerged as one of the prominent writers of tenkō bungaku (tenkō liter... more Shimaki Kensaku (1903-1945) emerged as one of the prominent writers of tenkō bungaku (tenkō literature) in the 1930's, but there is a twofold irony in this statement. First, Shimaki's “tenkō” came in 1929, four years before the term came into common use. Second, Shimaki wrote his first collection of short stories, Goku (Prison), in 1934, with virtually no previous experience writing fiction before that time.
Why did Shimaki become a writer and choose the genre of tenkō literature to cross the void left by his departure from the Marxist movement? In this chapter, I analyze Shimaki's first two short stories, ‘Rai’ (Leprosy) and ‘Mōmoku’ (Blindness), drawing on the theory of Mikhail Bakhtin, to help elucidate the interwoven nature of language and social activity in Shimaki’s initial tenkō literature. In particular, how did Shimaki use literature to explore the meanings of conviction as a way to build a bridge, to fill in the void, and thus, to cross the emptiness inside him created by his renunciation of Marxism? Moreover, how did his shift from the shishōsetsu style of the first-person narrative to an objective, third-person point-of-view, shape Shimaki’s attempts to move forward with his life by examining what he was leaving behind? Finally, from a historical point of view on Japan’s road to war in the 1930s, how did Shimaki’s internal struggle for meaning in his life through these short stories also reveal a writer attempting to critique the authority of both the Japanese state and the Communist Party?
Japanese Studies, 2021
Writing in the early 1960s, literary critic Hirano Ken argued that writer Hayashi Fusao became th... more Writing in the early 1960s, literary critic Hirano Ken argued that writer Hayashi Fusao became the Japan Proletarian Writers’ League’s (Nihon Puroretaria Sakka Dōmei) ‘greatest enemy’, following his romantic interpretation of the Meiji Restoration in his historical novel Seinen (Youth). Hirano asserted that Hayashi questioned the Marxist interpretation of the Meiji Restoration, in hopes of challenging the leadership of the Writers’ League. Hirano maintains that this confrontation eventually led to the dissolution of the proletarian literature movement. Thus, here we first examine the initial criticism of Seinen by Kamei Katsuichirō and Tokunaga Sunao, followed by an
analysis of the increasingly scathing condemnations of Hayashi’s historical novel by Kobayashi Takiji, Miyamoto Kenji, and finally a vitriolic and particularly mocking piece by Miyamoto Yuriko. Next, we review Hayashi’s response to this criticism, and end by considering appraisals of the confrontation: first, from a contemporary source in Marxist literary critic Aono Suekichi, and secondly, from Hirano Ken. Ultimately, this study hopes to underscore the contributing role of scorn and derision in intensifying the battle over the politics versus literature debate in the
proletarian literature movement’s final days.
Sino-Japanese Studies, Apr 2003
Book Reviews by Jeff Long
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
Monograph by Jeff Long
Cornell East Asia Series, 2018
Few events have symbolized the interwar Japanese intellectual community’s inability to put up a p... more Few events have symbolized the interwar Japanese intellectual community’s inability to put up a principled resistance to the Japanese government’s growing authoritarianism like the tenkō phenomenon of the 1930s (the political and/or ideological renunciation of the Communist Party and its affiliated organizations and activities). Instead of eliminating its political dissidents in the 1920s and 1930s, the Japanese state arrested them, placed them in solitary confinement, and then used inducements to encourage them to sign a tenkō statement, hence, rehabilitating and returning them to Japanese society. Previous studies have highlighted the institutional elements of repression, the intellectual’s personal struggles to remain committed to Marxism, or more recently the rejection of Leftist thought as a starting point for the rise of ethnic nationalism during the early Shōwa years (1926-1937).
Prioritizing the agency of the individual, this monograph is an attempt to engage the tenkō phenomenon from the intellectual’s perspective, examining the tenkō of writer and literary critic Hayashi Fusao (1903-1975). Hayashi was a member of the Japanese literati whose turn to ultranationalism in the 1930s and 1940s was so extreme that scholars often discount altogether his time in the radical student movement and his participation in the proletarian literature movement. Flipping the mirror on this interpretation, here we examine Hayashi’s tenkō through a close reading of his proletarian short stories. As a result, this work also draws attention to one of the more controversial intellectual and cultural issues during Japan’s “red decade” (1925-1935), the political role of literature in contesting the state’s dominance of state-society relations in imperial Japan.
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Papers by Jeff Long
Why did Shimaki become a writer and choose the genre of tenkō literature to cross the void left by his departure from the Marxist movement? In this chapter, I analyze Shimaki's first two short stories, ‘Rai’ (Leprosy) and ‘Mōmoku’ (Blindness), drawing on the theory of Mikhail Bakhtin, to help elucidate the interwoven nature of language and social activity in Shimaki’s initial tenkō literature. In particular, how did Shimaki use literature to explore the meanings of conviction as a way to build a bridge, to fill in the void, and thus, to cross the emptiness inside him created by his renunciation of Marxism? Moreover, how did his shift from the shishōsetsu style of the first-person narrative to an objective, third-person point-of-view, shape Shimaki’s attempts to move forward with his life by examining what he was leaving behind? Finally, from a historical point of view on Japan’s road to war in the 1930s, how did Shimaki’s internal struggle for meaning in his life through these short stories also reveal a writer attempting to critique the authority of both the Japanese state and the Communist Party?
analysis of the increasingly scathing condemnations of Hayashi’s historical novel by Kobayashi Takiji, Miyamoto Kenji, and finally a vitriolic and particularly mocking piece by Miyamoto Yuriko. Next, we review Hayashi’s response to this criticism, and end by considering appraisals of the confrontation: first, from a contemporary source in Marxist literary critic Aono Suekichi, and secondly, from Hirano Ken. Ultimately, this study hopes to underscore the contributing role of scorn and derision in intensifying the battle over the politics versus literature debate in the
proletarian literature movement’s final days.
Book Reviews by Jeff Long
Monograph by Jeff Long
Prioritizing the agency of the individual, this monograph is an attempt to engage the tenkō phenomenon from the intellectual’s perspective, examining the tenkō of writer and literary critic Hayashi Fusao (1903-1975). Hayashi was a member of the Japanese literati whose turn to ultranationalism in the 1930s and 1940s was so extreme that scholars often discount altogether his time in the radical student movement and his participation in the proletarian literature movement. Flipping the mirror on this interpretation, here we examine Hayashi’s tenkō through a close reading of his proletarian short stories. As a result, this work also draws attention to one of the more controversial intellectual and cultural issues during Japan’s “red decade” (1925-1935), the political role of literature in contesting the state’s dominance of state-society relations in imperial Japan.
Why did Shimaki become a writer and choose the genre of tenkō literature to cross the void left by his departure from the Marxist movement? In this chapter, I analyze Shimaki's first two short stories, ‘Rai’ (Leprosy) and ‘Mōmoku’ (Blindness), drawing on the theory of Mikhail Bakhtin, to help elucidate the interwoven nature of language and social activity in Shimaki’s initial tenkō literature. In particular, how did Shimaki use literature to explore the meanings of conviction as a way to build a bridge, to fill in the void, and thus, to cross the emptiness inside him created by his renunciation of Marxism? Moreover, how did his shift from the shishōsetsu style of the first-person narrative to an objective, third-person point-of-view, shape Shimaki’s attempts to move forward with his life by examining what he was leaving behind? Finally, from a historical point of view on Japan’s road to war in the 1930s, how did Shimaki’s internal struggle for meaning in his life through these short stories also reveal a writer attempting to critique the authority of both the Japanese state and the Communist Party?
analysis of the increasingly scathing condemnations of Hayashi’s historical novel by Kobayashi Takiji, Miyamoto Kenji, and finally a vitriolic and particularly mocking piece by Miyamoto Yuriko. Next, we review Hayashi’s response to this criticism, and end by considering appraisals of the confrontation: first, from a contemporary source in Marxist literary critic Aono Suekichi, and secondly, from Hirano Ken. Ultimately, this study hopes to underscore the contributing role of scorn and derision in intensifying the battle over the politics versus literature debate in the
proletarian literature movement’s final days.
Prioritizing the agency of the individual, this monograph is an attempt to engage the tenkō phenomenon from the intellectual’s perspective, examining the tenkō of writer and literary critic Hayashi Fusao (1903-1975). Hayashi was a member of the Japanese literati whose turn to ultranationalism in the 1930s and 1940s was so extreme that scholars often discount altogether his time in the radical student movement and his participation in the proletarian literature movement. Flipping the mirror on this interpretation, here we examine Hayashi’s tenkō through a close reading of his proletarian short stories. As a result, this work also draws attention to one of the more controversial intellectual and cultural issues during Japan’s “red decade” (1925-1935), the political role of literature in contesting the state’s dominance of state-society relations in imperial Japan.