Manufacturing Modern Japanese Literature

"This book is a must read book for people who are studying about Japanese literature or people interested to know more about the birth of the modern Japanese publishing industry. The author researched the subject thoroughly and gives us deep understanding of how the Japanese modern literature was born. . . . [I]t is very enjoyable to read. Even each footnote is packed with insightful details that give more vivid picture of the 'manufacturing' process of modern literature. It is an excellent and unique English language resource for an important period of Japan's literature history." - Naoko Maeda Rodolitz, Publishing Research Quarterly ". . . thoughtful and careful. . . . [A]n . . . excellent work of scholarship which pulls together analytical strands from print culture and literature and offers a meaningful contribution to English-language scholarship. I heartily recommend it." - Andrew Kamei-Dyche, SHARP News "Manufacturing Modern Japanese Literature provides a compelling sociological critique of the institution of literature in early twentieth-century Japan. . . . The problems Mack deals with in Manufacturing Modern Japanese Literature remain urgent concerns today, and his compelling study gives us some of the tools we need to grapple with them effectively." - Michael K. Bourdaghs, Journal of Japanese Studies "Edward Mack pulls the Japanese literary field out of the regressive myth of autonomous art and into the realms of social discourse and material practice. He compels us to reconsider the role of literary production and publishing in constructing concepts of cultural authority, national identity, and empire. Manufacturing Modern Japanese Literature is a rich, rewarding work."-Ann Sherif, author of Japan's Cold War: Media, Literature, and the Law "Manufacturing Modern Japanese Literature provides a compelling sociological critique of the institution of literature in early twentieth-century Japan. . . . The problems Mack deals with in Manufacturing Modern Japanese Literature remain urgent concerns today, and his compelling study gives us some of the tools we need to grapple with them effectively." -- Michael K. Bourdaghs * Journal of Japanese Studies * "This book is a must read book for people who are studying about Japanese literature or people interested to know more about the birth of the modern Japanese publishing industry. The author researched the subject thoroughly and gives us deep understanding of how the Japanese modern literature was born. . . . [I]t is very enjoyable to read. Even each footnote is packed with insightful details that give more vivid picture of the 'manufacturing' process of modern literature. It is an excellent and unique English language resource for an important period of Japan's literature history." -- Naoko Maeda Rodolitz * Publishing Research Quarterly * "Manufacturing Modern Japanese Literature contributes to deepening our knowledge and understanding of modern Japanese literature in two equally significant ways: on the one hand, it provides a wonderfully detailed study of two of the most powerful mechanisms for ascribing literary value in modern Japan; more generally, it reminds us that behind the discursive superstructure we call 'modern' 'Japanese' 'literature' there is a material base that needs to be studied, if we are to arrive at a historically-sound understanding of these concepts." -- Gian-Piero Persiani * East Asian Publishing and Society *

Edward Mack is Associate Professor of Japanese at the University of Washington.

Acknowledgments ix Introduction: Publishing and the Creation of an Alternative Economy of Value 1 1. Modernity as Rupture: The Concentration of Print Capital 17 2. The Stability of the Center: Tokyo Publishing and the Great Kanto Earthquake 51 3. The Static Canon: Kaizosha's Complete Works of Contemporary Japanese Literature 91 4. Defining and Defending Literary Value: Debates, 1919-1935 139 5. The Dynamic Canon: The Akutagawa and Naoki Prizes for Literature 181 Epilogue 223 Appendix 237 Notes 243 Works Cited 297 Index 311