A Fictional Commons - Natsume Soseki and the Properties of Modern Literature (Hardcover)

Modernity arrived in Japan, as elsewhere, through new forms of ownership. In A Fictional Commons, Michael K. Bourdaghs explores how the literary and theoretical works of Natsume Soseki (1867-1916), widely celebrated as Japan's greatest modern novelist, exploited the contradictions and ambiguities that haunted this new system. Many of his works feature narratives about inheritance, thievery, and the struggle to obtain or preserve material wealth while also imagining alternative ways of owning and sharing. For Soseki, literature was a means for thinking through-and beyond-private property. Bourdaghs puts Soseki into dialogue with thinkers from his own era (including William James and Mizuno Rentaro, author of Japan's first copyright law) and discusses how his work anticipates such theorists as Karatani Kojin and Franco Moretti. As Bourdaghs shows, Soseki both appropriated and rejected concepts of ownership and subjectivity in ways that theorized literature as a critical response to the emergence of global capitalism.

General

Imprint:	Duke University Press
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	September 2021
First published:	2021
Authors:	Michael K. Bourdaghs
Dimensions:	229 x 152mm (L x W)
Format:	Hardcover - Cloth over boards
Pages:	240
ISBN-13:	978-1-4780-1369-3
Categories:	Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Literary theory Promotions
LSN:	1-4780-1369-9
Barcode:	9781478013693

Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate? Let us know about it.

Does this product have an incorrect or missing image? Send us a new image.

Is this product missing categories? Add more categories.

Review This Product

No reviews yet - be the first to create one!