Chapter 13 Modes of Appreciation and the End of Kusazōshi
In: Graphic Narratives from Early Modern JapanSearch for other papers by Michael Emmerich in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Purchase instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Abstract
In chapter 13, “Modes of Appreciation and the End of Kusazōshi,” Michael Emmerich challenges any facile assumption as to where to position the death of kusazōshi. The first section culls from a generous pool of modern Japanese sources to reconstruct what Emmerich describes as a widely shared “experiential knowledge” of graphic narratives. Emmerich shows that modern Japanese readers were avid consumers of gōkan (combined booklets), savoring them not only as objects that offer the twofold pleasures of text and pictures, but also as publications invested with a specific social(izing) dimension. The second half of the chapter fast forwards to the 1970s. Emmerich recounts how contemporary writer Inoue Hisashi discovered kibyōshi. The argument is compelling. Inoue’s mode of appreciation of early modern graphic narratives is antithetical to the early modern experience of them. Once kusazōshi ceased to exist as something current, Emmerich argues, they are lost as object of “experiential knowledge,” becoming instead an object of “academic knowledge.”