Description
Arguing for the importance of taking Japanese political thought seriously, this book is the first to bring together authoritative essays by world experts on the thinkers who shaped Japan's New Left movement. In doing so, it demonstrates the distinctiveness and significance of Japanese left-wing thought, providing an invaluable resource for students of twentieth-century radical politics.
Highlighting connections between thinkers, their historical circumstances, and their biographies, Political Thought and Japan's New Left Movements provides concise and accessible overviews of the theoretical approaches developed by key political thinkers and evaluates the development and impact of their ideas.
The 1960s New Left doctrine, which broke with the seemingly outdated orthodox Marxist approach, became a cultural and political force that reshaped, albeit in diverse and unintended ways, the nations in which it emerged. Japan's experience of the New Left was no less dramatic, yet Western thinkers have largely overshadowed the contributions of Japan's New Left. This book finally redresses the balance and shines a light on Japanese New Left interpretations.
Table of Contents
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements
Not on the text/translation
Introduction: The Japanese New Left and the Politics of Rupture, Ferran de Vargas and Christopher Perkins, both University of Edinburgh, UK
Section 1. Exploring the Limits of Marxism
1. Umemoto Katsumi, the New Left and the Critique of Civil Society, Viren Murthy, UW-Madison, USA
2. Kakehashi Akihide: From the Philosophy of Nature to The Philosophy of Capital, Ferran de Vargas, University of Edinburgh, UK
3. Legitimacy and Leeway: The Resonance of Uno Kozo's Thought in Japan's New Left, Mario Malo, Universidad de Granada, Spain
4. Hani Goro and the New Left, Takemasa Ando, Musashi University, Japan
5. Inoue Kiyoshi and the Post-Anpo Student Movement, Curtis Anderson Gayle, Waseda University, Japan
Section 2. Developing a New Marxism
6. Kuroda Kan'ichi's Anti-JCP Marxism: Theorizing The “True” Vanguard Party, Ferran de Vargas, University of Edinburgh, UK
7. Hiromatsu Wataru: Theory and Practice of Relationalism and the Critique of Reification, Raji Steineck, University of Zurich, Switzerland
8. Takita Osamu: A Rogue Reconsidered, William Andrews, independent scholar Tokyo, Japan
9. Ota Ryu: the “Black Mirror” of the Japanese New Left, Till Knaudt, Kyoto University, Japan
Section 3. Moving Beyond Marxism
10. Yoshimoto Taka'aki, Radical Intellectual of the Multitude, Manuel Yang, Japan Women?s University, Japan
11. Tanigawa Gan: Poetic Metaphor as Political Action, Wesley Sasaki-Uemura, University of Utah, USA
12. Tokoro Mitsuko: love, revolution, and political activism in the long 1960s, Anna-Viktoria Vittinghoff, University of Sheffield, UK
13. Tanaka Mitsu and ribu: liberation begins with me, Yanagiwara Megumi, Ritsumeikan University, Japan, translated by Christopher Perkins, University of Edinburgh, UK
14. Nagasaki Hiroshi: Liberating Rebellion, Christopher Perkins, University of Edinburgh, UK
15. Karatani Kojin: learning from defeat and catastrophe, Carl Cassegård, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Index
