A sense of the city : : modes of urban representation in the works of Nagai Kafu (1879-1959) / / by Gala Maria Follaco.

• Author: Follaco, Gala Maria.
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden ;, Boston : : Brill,, 2017.
• Year of Publication: 2017
• Language: English
• Series: East Asian Comparative Literature and Culture 9.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (xi, 251 pages).

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.

Table of Contents

Front Matter -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Abroad -- Shanghai -- Tacoma, Seattle, Kalamazoo -- New York -- Lyon, Paris -- Tokyo -- Dealing with the Other -- Rhetoric of Places -- Deletion, Ingenuousness, Memory -- An Intimate Cartography -- Conclusion.