Tenkō: Cultures of Political Conversion in Transwar Japan: Irena Hayter, George T. Sipos, and Mark Williams (eds.), Routledge, London, 2021, 245 pp.: Japan Forum: Vol 0, No 0

1st Edition
Tenkō: Cultures of Political Conversion in Transwar Japan
Edited By Irena Hayter, George T. Sipos, Mark WilliamsCopyright 2021

ISBN 9780367770365
290 Pages 12 B/W Illustrations
Published June 17, 2021 by Routledge

Description

This book approaches the concept of tenkō (political conversion) as a response to the global crisis of interwar modernity, as opposed to a distinctly Japanese experience in postwar debates.

Tenkō connotes the expressions of ideological conversion performed by members of the Japanese Communist Party, starting in 1933, whereby they renounced Marxism and expressed support for Japan’s imperial expansion on the continent. Although tenkō has a significant presence in Japan’s postwar intellectual and literary histories, this contributed volume is one of the first in Englishm language scholarship to approach the phenomenon. International perspectives from both established and early career scholars show tenkō as inseparable from the global politics of empire, deeply marked by an age of mechanical reproduction, mediatization and the manipulation of language. Chapters draw on a wide range of interdisciplinary methodologies, from political theory and intellectual history to literary studies. In this way, tenkō is explored through new conceptual and analytical frameworks, including questions of gender and the role of affect in politics, implications that render the phenomenon distinctly relevant to the contemporary moment.

Tenkō: Cultures of Political Conversion in Transwar Japan will prove a valuable resource to students and scholars of Japanese and East Asian history, literature and politics.



Table of Contents


Part 1: Conceptual Excursions

1. ‘Ideological Conversion as Historical Catachresis: Coming to Terms with tenkō’

Max Ward



2. ‘The Historical Origins of tenkō as an Intellectual and Social Issue: Marxism – Thought Control – Media’

Brice Fauconnier



3. ‘Tenkō in Korea: Revealing the Critical Threshold of Colonial Empire’

Hong Jong-wook



4. ‘Takeuchi Yoshimi and the Problem of tenkō’

Viren Murthy

Part 2: Literary Possibilities



5. ‘Literature and Affect: Proletarian Literature as Discovery’

Nakagawa Shigemi



6. ‘Common Tropes and Themes in Japan’s tenkō Literature’

George T. Sipos



7. "Doublethink" in Seisan bungaku Theory’

Wada Takashi



8. ‘The Problem of Literary "Truth": The tenkō of Nakano Shigeharu and Hayashi Fusao’

Naitō Yoshitada



9. ‘The Disjointed Narratives and Fractured Subjects of Takami Jun’

Irena Hayter



10. ‘Crossing the Void: Shimaki Kensaku’s Search for Meaning in "Leprosy" and "Blindness"’

Jeff E. Long



11. ‘The Tenkō of Anarchist Poets: Agrarian and Cinematic Latencies’

Murata Hirokazu



12. ‘A Proletarian Writer in the Showcase Window: The Shifting Representation of "the Masses" in Sata Ineko’s Kurenai’

Lee Juhee



13. ‘Mythic Reality, Battlefield Survival and Psycho-social Conversion in Yoshida Mitsuru’s The End of Battleship Yamato’



David Stahl







Tenkō: Cultures of Political Conversion in Transwar Japan: Irena Hayter, George T. Sipos, and Mark Williams (eds.), Routledge, London, 2021, 245 pp.: Japan Forum: Vol 0, No 0


Book Review
Tenkō: Cultures of Political Conversion in Transwar Japan
Irena Hayter, George T. Sipos, and Mark Williams (eds.), Routledge, London,
2021, 245 pp.
Edwin Michielsen
Published online: 19 Feb 2023
Download citation
https://doi.org/10.1080/09555803.2023.2180075
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