Studies of mythology and the philosophy of religions ascribe violence an important role in understanding traditional societies. Whether perceived as sacred and capable of renewing the world, or as oppressive and destructive, violence acquires a twofold valence, whose constituents are interpreted in a complementary relation of interdependence and entail a world outlook with profound implications. Retrieving this ambiguous dimension of religious violence, Kenzaburō Ōe’s novel imagines, against the historical background of post-war Japanese society, a game that enacts the eternal rivalry (...) between two brothers. Lest the history of this seemingly lost present should fall prey to political abuse, the Japanese writer proposes a return to myth, without, however, idealising it; instead, myth is revalorised and tradition is re-conceived from the vantage point of rationalism, with full and alert awareness of the dangers inherent in an ideology that is imposed by force and aggression. Kenzaburō Ōe’s novel is a lucid meditation on Japan’s modern and contemporary history. (shrink)

This article examines the feelings of discomfort in the works of Nobel Prize winner Kenzaburo Ōe. Focusing on Ōe's first short story “Prize Stock”, Shiiku, the article discusses how the incredible event of a black pilot falling from the sky in the mountains near a small Japanese village during World War II refers to more general racial issues than those described. The discussion argues that Ōe's story, criticized as racist because of the treatment of the black airman, should be (...) read in a broader view, thematising the problems of race and marginalisation in Japan and beyond. (shrink)

Kojin Karatani wrote the essays in _History and Repetition_ during a time of radical historical change, triggered by the collapse of the Cold War and the death of the Showa emperor in 1989. Reading Karl Marx in an original way, Karatani developed a theory of history based on the repetitive cycle of crises attending the expansion and transformation of capital. His work led to a rigorous analysis of political, economic, and literary forms of representation that recast historical events as a (...) series of repeated forms forged in the transitional moments of global capitalism. _History and Repetition_ cemented Karatani's reputation as one of Japan's premier thinkers, capable of traversing the fields of philosophy, political economy, history, and literature in his work. The first complete translation of _History and Repetition_ into English, undertaken with the cooperation of Karatani himself, this volume opens with his innovative reading of _The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte_, tracing Marx's early theoretical formulation of the state. Karatani follows with a study of violent crises as they recur after major transitions of power, developing his theory of historical repetition and introducing a groundbreaking interpretation of fascism (in both Europe and Japan) as the spectral return of the absolutist monarch in the midst of a crisis of representative democracy. For Karatani, fascism represents the most violent materialization of the repetitive mechanism of history. Yet he also seeks out singularities that operate outside the brutal inevitability of historical repetition, whether represented in literature or, more precisely, in the process of literature's demise. Closely reading the works of Oe Kenzaburo, Mishima Yukio, Nakagami Kenji, and Murakami Haruki, Karatani compares the recurrent and universal with the singular and unrepeatable, while advancing a compelling theory of the decline of modern literature. Merging theoretical arguments with a concrete analysis of cultural and intellectual history, Karatani's essays encapsulate a brilliant, multidisciplinary perspective on world history. (shrink)

Winner, 2002 French Translation Prize for Nonfiction Murderous Consent details our implication in violence we do not directly inflict but in which we are structurally complicit: famines, civil wars, political repression in far-away places, and war, as it’s classically understood. Marc Crépon insists on a bond between ethics and politics and attributes violence to our treatment of the two as separate spheres. We repeatedly resist the call to responsibility, as expressed by the appeal—by peoples across the world—for the care and (...) attention that their vulnerability enjoins. But Crépon argues that this resistance is not ineluctable, and the book searches for ways that enable us to mitigate it, through rebellion, kindness, irony, critique, and shame. In the process, he engages with a range of writers, from Camus, Sartre, and Freud, to Stefan Zweig and Karl Kraus, to Kenzaburo Oe, Emmanuel Levinas and Judith Butler. The resulting exchange between philosophy and literature enables Crépon to delineate the contours of a possible/impossible ethicosmopolitics—an ethicosmopolitics to come. Pushing against the limits of liberal rationalism, Crépon calls for a more radical understanding of interpersonal responsibility. Not just a work of philosophy but an engagement with life as it’s lived, Murderous Consent works to redefine our global obligations, articulating anew what humanitarianism demands and what an ethically grounded political resistance might mean. (shrink)

1. Singminjijŏk sayu ŭi chŏnbok ŭl wihae.