{"product_id":"text-and-the-city-essays-on-japanese-modernity-9780822333463","title":"Text and the City: Essays on Japanese Modernity","description":"Maeda Ai was a prominent literary critic and an influential public intellectual in late-twentieth-century Japan. \u003ci\u003eText and the City\u003c\/i\u003e is the first book of his work to appear in English. A literary and cultural critic deeply engaged with European critical thought, Maeda was a brilliant, insightful theorist of modernity for whom the city was the embodiment of modern life. He conducted a far-reaching inquiry into changing conceptions of space, temporality, and visual practices as they gave shape to the city and its inhabitants. James A. Fujii has assembled a selection of Maeda's essays that question and explore the contours of Japanese modernity and resonate with the concerns of literary and cultural studies today.\u003cp\u003eMaeda remapped the study of modern Japanese literature and culture in the 1970s and 1980s, helping to generate widespread interest in studying mass culture on the one hand and marginalized sectors of modern Japanese society on the other. These essays reveal the broad range of Maeda's cultural criticism. Among the topics considered are Tokyo; utopias; prisons; visual media technologies including panoramas and film; the popular culture of the Edo, Meiji, and contemporary periods; maps; women's magazines; and women writers. Integrally related to these discussions are Maeda's readings of works of Japanese literature including Matsubara Iwagoro's \u003ci\u003eIn Darkest Tokyo, \u003c\/i\u003e Nagai Kafu's \u003ci\u003eThe Fox, \u003c\/i\u003e Higuchi Ichiyo's \u003ci\u003eGrowing Up, \u003c\/i\u003e Kawabata Yasunari's \u003ci\u003eThe Crimson Gang of Asakusa, \u003c\/i\u003e and Narushima Ryuhoku's short story \"Useless Man.\" Illuminating the infinitely rich phenomena of modernity, these essays are full of innovative, unexpected connections between cultural productions and urban life, between the text and the city.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMaeda Ai (1931-1987) was a renowned Japanese literary and cultural critic. He taught at Rikkyo University. His many books include the three-volume \u003ci\u003eThe Space of Tokyo 1868-1930\u003c\/i\u003e (1986), \u003ci\u003eThe World of Higuchi Ichiyo\u003c\/i\u003e (1978)\u003ci\u003e, Meiji as Phantasm\u003c\/i\u003e (1978), \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe Creation of the Modern Reader\u003c\/i\u003e (1973).\u003cbr\u003eJames A. Fujii is Associate Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literature at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eComplicit Fictions: The Subject in the Modern Japanese Prose Narrative.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJames A. Fujii is Associate Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literature at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eComplicit Fictions: The Subject in the Modern Japanese Prose Narrative.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Duke University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51589800165650,"sku":"9780822333463","price":39.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_d235ead1-f6e3-43f1-83f3-dce0c850a770.jpg?v=1756807093","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/text-and-the-city-essays-on-japanese-modernity-9780822333463","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}