Organizer: Charles Shiro Inouye, Tufts University
Chair and Discussant: Cody Poulton, University of Victoria
Comparative Fantasy
Susan J. Napier, University of Texas
Few terms so badly highlight ontological difference as "fantasy." Various theories have been put forward to account for what we might call "the other reality," but all of these are, in the end, contingent upon prevailing yet equally diverse notions of what is and is not real. In the case of Kyoka, traditional signifiers of alterity, e.g., ghosts, demons, monstrosity, metamorphosis, and so forth, are so insistent that they collapse the essential falseness of the fantastic, placing into doubt the truths of rationality. To what extent is Kyoka's formulation of the fantastic informed by its cultural context-by legends, folklore, and the visual plasticity of gesaku texts? How does it compare with the nature of fantasy in other literary cultures?
Japan in the Works of Izumi Kyoka
Nobuo Kasahara, Nihon Daigaku
Kyoka has often been referred to by his admirers-Mashima, Kawabata, Akutagawa, and others-as Japan's most "Japanese" author. What precisely does this mean, especially in the context of Japanese nationalism? Is this chauvinistic affirmation something more than a nod to the eccentricities of an author who could be held up as a symbol of Japanese uniqueness? Or is there really something to this characterization? What is Japanese about Kyoka's work?
Fantasy, Territory of Darkness
Noriko Takakuwa, Doshisha Women's College
Fantasy is an important attribute of Kyoka's writing. Where do the fantastic elements of Kyoka's writing come from? And how are they related to the play of language? Pursuing these questions leads us to questions about the very nature of literature. For what in the human character does literature atone? Tsuruya Nanboku and Kawatake Mokuami will be used as points of reference.
Representing the Unrepresentable: Transparent Communication in the Work of Izumi
Kyoka
Joseph Murphy, University of Florida
It is often suggested that Izumi Kyoka's works embody a peculiarly Japanese sensibility in peculiarly Japanese scenes and images, such that his works are impossible to translate. This paper will take up Yukari no onna (The Women in My Life, 1920), lauded by Kawabata as a picture of traditional Japan, drawing out its distinctive narrative structures and thematic treatment of otherness in the form of outcaste characters as a site in which to work out the relation of Kyoka's work and this critical image of Kyoka's Japaneseness.