Publication date:

17 October 2017

Length of book:

212 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

Dimensions:

237x159mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781498523677

Tokyo: Memory, Imagination, and the City is a collection of eight essays that explore Tokyo urban space from the perspective of memory in works of the imagination—novels, short stories, poetry, essays, and films. Written by scholars of Japanese studies based in England, Germany, Japan, and the United States, the book focuses on texts produced in Japan since the 1980s. The closing years of the Shōwa period (1926-1989) were a watershed decade of spatial transformation in Tokyo. It was also a time (in Japan, as elsewhere) when conversations about the nature of memory—historical, cultural, collective, and individual—intensified. The contributors to the volume share the view that works of the imagination are constitutive elements of how cities are experienced and perceived. Each of the essays responds to the growing interest in studies on Tokyo with a literary-cultural orientation.

This book is inspirational reading for the preparation of a trip to Tokyo and for long intercontinental flights from North America and Europe to the city. Inspired by the essays, scientific travellers from the architecture and urban planning community will certainly benefit from reading this book, beyond the visual they expect to see.