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A Sense of the City
Modes of Urban Representation in the Works of Nagai Kafū (1879-1959)
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In
A Sense of the City, Gala Maria Follaco examines Nagai Kafū’s (1879-1959) literary construction of urban spatialities from late Meiji through the early Shōwa period. She argues that Kafū’s urban critique was based on his awareness of the cultural sedimentation of the cityscape and of the complex relationship that it bore with the historical framework of modern Japan.
With the overall aim to define Kafū’s position within pre-war Japanese literature, Follaco touches upon key issues such as memory, class difference, and language ideologies; draws connections between his sojourn abroad and strategies of “mapping” the city of Tokyo in his literature; and takes into account works previously understudied, including his biography of Washizu Kidō and his photographs.
With the overall aim to define Kafū’s position within pre-war Japanese literature, Follaco touches upon key issues such as memory, class difference, and language ideologies; draws connections between his sojourn abroad and strategies of “mapping” the city of Tokyo in his literature; and takes into account works previously understudied, including his biography of Washizu Kidō and his photographs.
Gala Maria Follaco, Ph.D. (2012), “L’Orientale” University of Naples, is Research Fellow of Japanese Studies at that University. She has translated the works of several Japanese writers and published articles on urban representation in modern and contemporary Japanese literature.
“
A Sense of the City is the first coherent study of Kafu which places the centrality of the city in his writings at the forefront. Overall, [it] is a complex and timely book, calmly written, unfashionable in theme, and thought provoking. Follaco’s investigation of Kafu’s notion of the urban and the narrative functions with which he charged it breaks new ground.”
-Evelyn Shulz, Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, in The Journal of Japanese Studies, Volume 46, Number 1, Winter 2020, pp. 239-244
-Evelyn Shulz, Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, in The Journal of Japanese Studies, Volume 46, Number 1, Winter 2020, pp. 239-244
Series Editors’ Foreword
Acknowledgments
List of Illustrations
Introduction
Part 1: Abroad
1 Shanghai 2 Tacoma, Seattle, Kalamazoo 3 New York 4 Lyon, ParisPart 2: Tokyo
5 Dealing with the Other 6 Rhetoric of Places 7 Deletion, Ingenuousness, Memory 8 An Intimate Cartography Conclusion Bibliography Index
All interested in modern Japanese literature, comparative studies, and the relationship between city and literature; upper division undergraduate as well as graduate students in Japanese literature and culture.