Persistently Postwar

Blai Guarné is an Associate Professor and Coordinator of the East Asian Studies Programme at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He has been Visiting Fellow at the University of Tokyo and a Postdoctoral Scholar at Stanford University. His publications include Antropología de Japón (Bellaterra 2017) and Escaping Japan: Reflections on Estrangement and Exile in the Twenty-first Century (Routledge 2018).

“Persistently Postwar uses a variety of detailed case studies to demonstrate how the contested legacy of the Asia-Pacific War has helped to shape the artistic and intellectual life of postwar Japan. This thought-provoking and highly readable collection of essays leaves the reader with deep insights into not only depictions of war in Japanese popular culture, but also how the war has affected broader cultural production from yakuza films to the anime industry.” • Philip Seaton, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies

• Introduction: The Politics of Media and Memory Representation in JapanBlai Guarné, Artur Lozano-Méndez, and Dolores P. MartinezPART I: WAR’S AFTERMATHChapter 1. The Death of Certainty: Memory, guilt and redemption in IkiruDolores P. MartinezChapter 2. Postwar Narratives and the Avant-garde Documentary: Tokyo 1958 and Furyō ShōnenMarcos Centeno MartínChapter 3. Radical Subjectivity as a Counter to Japanese Humanist Cinema: Ōshima Nagisa’s Nūberu BāguFerran de VargasPART II:  THE PAST IN THE PRESENTChapter 4. Recreating Memory? The Drama Watashi wa kai ni naritai and Its RemakesGriseldis KirschChapter 5. From Myth to Cult: Tragic Heroes, Parody and Gender Politics in the 1960s–1970s ‘Bad Girls’ Cinema of JapanLaura TregliaChapter 6. Collective Remorse for the Past: Japanese Film and TV Representations of the 1960s Student MovementKatsuyuki HidakaPART III:  THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORYChapter 7. Depicting the Persistence of Being Postwar: Eden of the EastArtur Lozano-MéndezChapter 8. Rethinking Anime in East Asia: Creative Labour in Transnational Production, Or, What Gets Lost in TranslationTomohiro MorisawaAfterword: The Persistence of TraumaDolores P. Martinez, Blai Guarné, and Artur Lozano-Méndez