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Disengaging the Periphery: Akutagawa Ryunosuke and the Literature of Distraction  


Abstract Category: Arts
Course / Degree: Japanese C197B, Professor Seiji Lippit
Institution / University: UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles), United States
Published in: 2006


Paper Abstract / Summary:

This paper makes the assertion that Japan’s initial bifurcated geographic disposition, with its emphasis on immobility and separation, provides a frame of reference for evaluating other aspects of traditional Japanese culture—in particular, its literature—as well as a way of apprehending individual meaning-making in pre-Meiji Japan. In arguing that this structure eventually gave way to Meiji Japan’s assumption of a topographic attitude of fluidity and concentration, the paper also claims that this new configuration was also multi-layered and can thus be linked to a coordinate alteration in Japan’s phrenic layout. However, the point of view expressed here, though perhaps not always directly, is that, while the teleology of the modern structural adaptation is of an essentially foreign inscription, the origins of the traditional formation can be linked to sources of an axiomatically native architecture.

Finally, in discussing the literature of Akutagawa Ryûnosuke, it is suggested that he consistently subverted both of these archetypal configurations, first by rejecting the de dicto orientation toward affect of received formal conventions while in large part adopting the formal techniques themselves, and, subsequently, by disinheriting even those practices, choosing near the end of his career to engage a narrative space exploiting the fluid, concentrated conditions of modernity.


Paper Keywords/Search Tags:
Akutagawa Ryunosuke Japanese Literature Taisho Meiji Soseki Topography Topographies

This Paper Abstract may be cited as follows:
Walker, David. "Disengaging the Periphery: Akutagawa Ryunosuke and the Literature of Distraction." Thesis. UCLA. 2006


Submission Details: Paper Abstract submitted by David W. Walker from United States on 11-Feb-2006 01:13.
Abstract has been viewed 2931 times (since 7 Mar 2010).

David W. Walker Contact Details: Email: dwwalker@ucla.edu



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