Richard Calichman's Books

The Coming Death

Traces of Mortality across East Asia

By: Richard F. Calichman

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Coming Death

Traces of Mortality across East Asia

By: Richard F. Calichman

The Coming Death explores the question of death and mortality in several key texts of East Asian literature and cinema. By exposing the specific fields of Japanology and Sinology to the more general discourse of thanatology, Richard Calichman aims to define death more expansively on the basis of loss and disappearance. Typically, death is understood to be purely separate from life: where death is, life is not; and where life is, death is not. Yet this view fails to account not only for the frequency with which living individuals encounter the death of others, but also—and far more radically—for the disturbing fact that life in its unfolding remains at each moment open to the possibility of its own destruction. In this regard, Calichman argues, death must be conceived not simply as an actual event, but even more fundamentally as a general possibility without which life itself could not develop. At issue is how death reveals the emptiness of all identity, which demands that life and death no longer be conceived as purely oppositional. If mortal death can appear at the very origin of life, then the fullness or presence of life is at each instant threatened by the possibility of its negation. Through a reading of the works of such major artistic and intellectual figures as Kurosawa Akira, Tsai Ming-liang, Lu Xun, and Takeuchi Yoshimi, The Coming Death argues for a fundamental rethinking of mortality.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

226

Publisher

State University of New York Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1438487304

ISBN 13

9781438487304

Before Identity

The Question of Method in Japan Studies

By: Richard F. Calichman

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Before Identity

The Question of Method in Japan Studies

By: Richard F. Calichman

Before Identity represents the first attempt to provide a comprehensive examination of the methodological ground of Japan studies. At its most basic level, the field presupposes the immediate empirical existence of an entity known as the "Japanese people" or "Japanese culture," from which it then carves out its various objects of inquiry. Richard F. Calichman attempts to show that this presupposition is itself ineluctably bound up with modern forms of knowledge formation, thereby enlarging the scope of what is meant by modernity. In this way, he aims to bring about a heightened level of theoretical-critical vigilance in the field. Calichman explores the methodological commitments implied or expressed in the work of a range of writers and scholars—Murakami Haruki, Komori Yōichi, Harry Harootunian, Tomi Suzuki, Alan Tansman, and Dennis Washburn—and how such commitments have shaped and limited the field. If theoretical issues in Japan studies are not subjected to this sort of in-depth scrutiny, Calichman argues, then the field will continue to remain ghettoized relative to other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, which have typically been more receptive to conceptual discourse. By showing that scholarly inquiry must begin not at the level of the object but rather at the more fundamental level of methodology, Calichman aims to introduce a greater degree of theoretical rigor to the discipline of Japan studies as a whole.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

283

Publisher

State University of New York Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1438482159

ISBN 13

9781438482156

Overcoming Modernity

Cultural Identity in Wartime Japan

By: Richard Calichman

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Overcoming Modernity

Cultural Identity in Wartime Japan

By: Richard Calichman

In the summer of 1942 Japan's leading cultural authorities gathered in Tokyo to discuss the massive cultural, technological, and intellectual changes that had transformed Japan since the Meiji period. They feared that without a sufficient understanding of these developments, the Japanese people would lose their identity to the reckless and rapid process of modernization. The participants of this symposium hoped to settle the question of Japanese cultural identity at a time when their country was already at war with England and the United States. They presented papers and held roundtable discussions analyzing the effects of modernity from the diverse perspectives of literature, history, theology, film, music, philosophy, and science. Taken together, their work represents a complex portrait of intellectual discourse in wartime Japan, marked not only by a turn toward fascism but also by a profound sense of cultural crisis and anxiety. Overcoming Modernity is the first English translation of the symposium proceedings. Originally published in 1942, this material remains one of the most valuable documents of wartime Japanese intellectual history. Richard F. Calichman reproduces the entire proceedings and includes a critical introduction that provides thorough background of the symposium and its reception among postwar Japanese thinkers and critics. The aim of this conference was to go beyond facile and unreflective discussions concerning Japan's new spiritual order and examine more substantially the phenomenon of Japanese modernization and westernization. This does not mean, however, that a consensus was reached among the symposium's participants. Their tense debate reflects the problematic efforts within Japan, if not throughout the rest of the world at the time, to resolve the troubling issues of modernity.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

258

Publisher

Columbia University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0231143966

ISBN 13

9780231143967

Beyond Nation

Time, Writing, and Community in the Work of Abe Kōbō

By: Richard Calichman

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Beyond Nation

Time, Writing, and Community in the Work of Abe Kōbō

By: Richard Calichman

In the work of writer Abe Kōbō (1924–1993), characters are alienated both from themselves and from one another. Through close readings of Abe's work, Richard Calichman reveals how time and writing have the ability to unground identity. Over time, attempts to create unity of self cause alienation, despite government attempts to convince people to form communities (and nations) to recapture a sense of wholeness. Art, then, must resist the nation-state and expose its false ideologies. Calichman argues that Abe's attack on the concept of national affiliation has been neglected through his inscription as a writer of Japanese literature. At the same time, the institution of Japan Studies works to tighten the bond between nation-state and individual subject. Through Abe's essays and short stories, he shows how the formation of community is constantly displaced by the notions of time and writing. Beyond Nation thus analyzes the elements of Orientalism, culturalism, and racism that often underlie the appeal to collective Japanese identity.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

286

Publisher

Stanford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0804797552

ISBN 13

9780804797559

Overcoming Modernity

Cultural Identity in Wartime Japan

By: Richard Calichman

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Overcoming Modernity

Cultural Identity in Wartime Japan

By: Richard Calichman

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

258

Publisher

Columbia University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0231143966

ISBN 13

9780231143967

The Coming Death

Traces of Mortality across East Asia

By: Richard F. Calichman

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Coming Death

Traces of Mortality across East Asia

By: Richard F. Calichman

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

226

Publisher

State University of New York Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1438487304

ISBN 13

9781438487304

Before Identity

The Question of Method in Japan Studies

By: Richard F. Calichman

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Before Identity

The Question of Method in Japan Studies

By: Richard F. Calichman

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

283

Publisher

State University of New York Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1438482159

ISBN 13

9781438482156

Beyond Nation

Time, Writing, and Community in the Work of Abe Kōbō

By: Richard Calichman

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Beyond Nation

Time, Writing, and Community in the Work of Abe Kōbō

By: Richard Calichman

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

286

Publisher

Stanford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0804797552

ISBN 13

9780804797559

Book's by Richard Calichman

The Coming Death

The Coming Death

Before Identity

Before Identity

Overcoming Modernity

Overcoming Modernity

Beyond Nation

Beyond Nation

Overcoming Modernity

Overcoming Modernity

The Coming Death

The Coming Death

Before Identity

Before Identity

Beyond Nation

Beyond Nation

Username

Password

Username

Password

Password again

Birthday

Email