Critics and cultural historians take Japan's postwar insularity
for granted, rarely acknowledging the role of Cold War concerns in
the shaping of Japanese society and culture. Nuclear anxiety,
polarized ideologies, gendered tropes of nationhood, and new myths
of progress, among other developments, profoundly transformed
Japanese literature, criticism, and art during this era and fueled
the country's desire to recast itself as a democratic nation and
culture.
By rereading the pivotal events, iconic figures, and crucial
texts of Japan's literary and artistic life through the lens of the
Cold War, Ann Sherif places this supposedly insular nation at the
center of a global battle. Each of her chapters focuses on a major
moment, spectacle, or critical debate highlighting Japan's
entanglement with cultural Cold War politics. Film director
Kurosawa Akira, atomic bomb writer Hara Tamiki, singer and movie
star Ishihara Yujiro, and even "Godzilla" and the Japanese
translation of "Lady Chatterley's Lover" all reveal the trends and
controversies that helped Japan carve out a postwar literary canon,
a definition of obscenity, an idea of the artist's function in
society, and modern modes of expression and knowledge.
Sherif's comparative approach not only recontextualizes
seemingly anomalous texts and ideas, but binds culture firmly to
the domestic and international events that defined the decades
following World War II. By integrating the art and criticism of
Japan into larger social fabrics, "Japan's Cold War" offers a truly
unique perspective on the critical and creative acts of a country
remaking itself in the aftermath of war.
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