William H. Bridges is assistant professor of Japanese and Asian studies at St. Olaf College. Nina Cornyetz is associate professor of interdisciplinary studies at the Gallatin School for Individualized Study, New York University.

Traveling Texts and the Work of Afro-Japanese Cultural Production successfully transgresses these disciplinary boundaries, covering a range of topics as eclectic and syncretic as the encounters themselves. . . . The volume shines valuable light on gender relationships traditionally overlooked in Afro-Japanese research, which until recently has tended towards a phallocentric focus on African American male intellectual, artistic, political, and sociosexual encounters with Japanese. . . . This splendid collection propels the discussion of Afro-Japanese encounters forward in important, new, and unexpected directions that point the way for future multidisciplinary scholarship into the intersections of identity, Negritude and Nihonjinron, cultural studies, critical race studies, and much more.

• Part One: Art and PerformanceChapter 1: Urban Geishas: Reading Race and Gender in iROZEALb’s Paintings, Crystal AndersonChapter 2: The Theatrics of Japanese Blackface: Body as Mannequin, Nina CornyetzChapter 3: Abbey Lincoln and Kazuko Shiraishi’s Art-Making as Spiritual Labor, Yuichiro Onishi and Tia-Simone GardnerPart Two: Poetry and LiteratureChapter 4: Playing the Dozens on Zen: Amiri Baraka’s Journey from a “Pre-Black” Bohemian Outsider to a “Post-American Low Coup” Poet, Michio ArimitsuChapter 5: Richard Wright’s Haiku and Modernist Poetics, Yoshinobu Hakutani Chapter 6: In the Beginning: Blackness and the 1960s Creative Nonfiction of Ôe Kenzaburô, William H. Bridges IVChapter 7: Future-Oriented Blackness in Showa Robot Culture—1924 to 1963, Anne McKnightPart Three: Sound, Song, MusicChapter 8: “This Is Who I Am”: Jero and the Polycultural Politics of Black Enka, Kevin FellezsChapter 9: Extending Diaspora: The NAACP and Up-“Lift” Cultures in the Interwar Black Pacific, Shana Re

William H. Bridges is assistant professor of Japanese and Asian studies at St. Olaf College. Nina Cornyetz is associate professor of interdisciplinary studies at the Gallatin School for Individualized Study, New York University.

Traveling Texts and the Work of Afro-Japanese Cultural Production successfully transgresses these disciplinary boundaries, covering a range of topics as eclectic and syncretic as the encounters themselves. . . . The volume shines valuable light on gender relationships traditionally overlooked in Afro-Japanese research, which until recently has tended towards a phallocentric focus on African American male intellectual, artistic, political, and sociosexual encounters with Japanese. . . . This splendid collection propels the discussion of Afro-Japanese encounters forward in important, new, and unexpected directions that point the way for future multidisciplinary scholarship into the intersections of identity, Negritude and Nihonjinron, cultural studies, critical race studies, and much more.

• Part One: Art and PerformanceChapter 1: Urban Geishas: Reading Race and Gender in iROZEALb’s Paintings, Crystal AndersonChapter 2: The Theatrics of Japanese Blackface: Body as Mannequin, Nina CornyetzChapter 3: Abbey Lincoln and Kazuko Shiraishi’s Art-Making as Spiritual Labor, Yuichiro Onishi and Tia-Simone GardnerPart Two: Poetry and LiteratureChapter 4: Playing the Dozens on Zen: Amiri Baraka’s Journey from a “Pre-Black” Bohemian Outsider to a “Post-American Low Coup” Poet, Michio ArimitsuChapter 5: Richard Wright’s Haiku and Modernist Poetics, Yoshinobu Hakutani Chapter 6: In the Beginning: Blackness and the 1960s Creative Nonfiction of Ôe Kenzaburô, William H. Bridges IVChapter 7: Future-Oriented Blackness in Showa Robot Culture—1924 to 1963, Anne McKnightPart Three: Sound, Song, MusicChapter 8: “This Is Who I Am”: Jero and the Polycultural Politics of Black Enka, Kevin FellezsChapter 9: Extending Diaspora: The NAACP and Up-“Lift” Cultures in the Interwar Black Pacific, Shana Re

William H. Bridges is assistant professor of Japanese and Asian studies at St. Olaf College. Nina Cornyetz is associate professor of interdisciplinary studies at the Gallatin School for Individualized Study, New York University.

Traveling Texts and the Work of Afro-Japanese Cultural Production successfully transgresses these disciplinary boundaries, covering a range of topics as eclectic and syncretic as the encounters themselves. . . . The volume shines valuable light on gender relationships traditionally overlooked in Afro-Japanese research, which until recently has tended towards a phallocentric focus on African American male intellectual, artistic, political, and sociosexual encounters with Japanese. . . . This splendid collection propels the discussion of Afro-Japanese encounters forward in important, new, and unexpected directions that point the way for future multidisciplinary scholarship into the intersections of identity, Negritude and Nihonjinron, cultural studies, critical race studies, and much more.

• Part One: Art and PerformanceChapter 1: Urban Geishas: Reading Race and Gender in iROZEALb’s Paintings, Crystal AndersonChapter 2: The Theatrics of Japanese Blackface: Body as Mannequin, Nina CornyetzChapter 3: Abbey Lincoln and Kazuko Shiraishi’s Art-Making as Spiritual Labor, Yuichiro Onishi and Tia-Simone GardnerPart Two: Poetry and LiteratureChapter 4: Playing the Dozens on Zen: Amiri Baraka’s Journey from a “Pre-Black” Bohemian Outsider to a “Post-American Low Coup” Poet, Michio ArimitsuChapter 5: Richard Wright’s Haiku and Modernist Poetics, Yoshinobu Hakutani Chapter 6: In the Beginning: Blackness and the 1960s Creative Nonfiction of Ôe Kenzaburô, William H. Bridges IVChapter 7: Future-Oriented Blackness in Showa Robot Culture—1924 to 1963, Anne McKnightPart Three: Sound, Song, MusicChapter 8: “This Is Who I Am”: Jero and the Polycultural Politics of Black Enka, Kevin FellezsChapter 9: Extending Diaspora: The NAACP and Up-“Lift” Cultures in the Interwar Black Pacific, Shana Re