50% Off The Criterion Collection Shop Now
Acquired Alterity: Migration, Identity, and Literary Nationalism
A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org.

This is the first book-length study in English of the Japanese-language literary activities of early Japanese migrants to Brazil. It provides a detailed history of Japanese-language bookstores, serialized newspaper fiction, original creative works, and critical apparatuses that existed in Brazil prior to World War II. This case study of the reading and writing of one diasporic population challenges the dominant mode of literary study, in which texts are often explicitly or implicitly understood through a framework of ethno-nationalism. Self-representations by writers in the diaspora reveal flaws in this prevailing framework through what Edward Mack calls “acquired alterity,” in which expectations about the stability of ethnic identity are subverted in surprising ways. Acquired Alterity encourages a reconsideration of the ramifications (and motivations) of cultural analyses of texts and the constructions of peoplehood that are often the true objects of literary knowledge production.
"1139114971"
Acquired Alterity: Migration, Identity, and Literary Nationalism
A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org.

This is the first book-length study in English of the Japanese-language literary activities of early Japanese migrants to Brazil. It provides a detailed history of Japanese-language bookstores, serialized newspaper fiction, original creative works, and critical apparatuses that existed in Brazil prior to World War II. This case study of the reading and writing of one diasporic population challenges the dominant mode of literary study, in which texts are often explicitly or implicitly understood through a framework of ethno-nationalism. Self-representations by writers in the diaspora reveal flaws in this prevailing framework through what Edward Mack calls “acquired alterity,” in which expectations about the stability of ethnic identity are subverted in surprising ways. Acquired Alterity encourages a reconsideration of the ramifications (and motivations) of cultural analyses of texts and the constructions of peoplehood that are often the true objects of literary knowledge production.
34.95 In Stock
Acquired Alterity: Migration, Identity, and Literary Nationalism

Acquired Alterity: Migration, Identity, and Literary Nationalism

by Edward Mack
Acquired Alterity: Migration, Identity, and Literary Nationalism
Add to Wishlist
Acquired Alterity: Migration, Identity, and Literary Nationalism

Acquired Alterity: Migration, Identity, and Literary Nationalism

by Edward Mack

Overview

A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org.

This is the first book-length study in English of the Japanese-language literary activities of early Japanese migrants to Brazil. It provides a detailed history of Japanese-language bookstores, serialized newspaper fiction, original creative works, and critical apparatuses that existed in Brazil prior to World War II. This case study of the reading and writing of one diasporic population challenges the dominant mode of literary study, in which texts are often explicitly or implicitly understood through a framework of ethno-nationalism. Self-representations by writers in the diaspora reveal flaws in this prevailing framework through what Edward Mack calls “acquired alterity,” in which expectations about the stability of ethnic identity are subverted in surprising ways. Acquired Alterity encourages a reconsideration of the ramifications (and motivations) of cultural analyses of texts and the constructions of peoplehood that are often the true objects of literary knowledge production.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780520383043
Publisher: University of California Press
Publication date: 01/25/2022
Series: New Interventions in Japanese Studies , #3
Edition description: First Edition
Pages: 274
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Edward Mack is Associate Professor of Asian Languages and Literature at the University of Washington and author of Manufacturing Modern Japanese Literature: Publishing, Prizes, and the Ascription of Literary Value. 

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations vii

Acknowledgments ix

1 Introduction 1

2 The State: Livraria Yendo and Japanese-Language Readers in Brazil 11

Japanese-Language Readers Outside Japan 12

1908-24: The Early Years of the Japanese in Brazil 14

1924-34: The Years of Japanese State-Sponsored Migration 25

1934-41: A Sizable, Stabilized Marketplace 33

Territorialization and Japanese Literature 38

3 Culture: Samurai, Spies, and Serialized Fiction 41

Background 42

Japanese-Language Newspapers in Brazil 44

Duels in the Presence of the Shogun Iemitsu 46

The Early Years: Historical Fiction, 1917-33 50

Illegal Printing 53

Experimentation and Transition, 1932-34 54

A New Order, 1934-41 55

Origins of the Serialized Works 58

Periodization of Prewar Serializations 62

Notable Exceptions 63

Translations 65

Japanese Literatures 65

Ten Stories from Brazil 67

"An Age of Speculative Farming" 73

"The Death of a Certain Settler" 81

"Natsuyo" 91

"Placement" 96

"Tumbleweeds" 102

"After We Had Settled" 114

"Revenge" 124

"Vortices" 129

"Ashes" 138

"A Certain Ghetto" 144

4 Ethnos: Tacit Promises 153

Racial Other as Instrument of Justice 154

Intraracial Betrayal 158

Valorizing Heterogeneity 161

Extremes of Alterity and Identity 166

Japanese Literature as Political Project 171

5 Language: The Illusion of Linguistic Singularity, or the Monolingual Imagination 175

Strategies for Representing Linguistic Diversity 177

Nihongo bungaku: Japanese-Language Literature 185

6 Conclusions 197

Naming Collections of Texts 203

Notes 207

Appendix 1 Proper Names 233

Appendix 2 Koronia-go (loanwords from Portuguese) 237

Works Cited 241

Index 247

From the B&N Reads Blog
Page 1 of

Customer Reviews