Tokyo

Memory, Imagination, and the City

Contributions by Jeffrey Angles, Kristina Iwata-Weickgenannt, Mark Pendleton, Evelyn Schulz, Bruce Suttmeier, Barbara E. Thornbury, Angela Yiu, Eve Zimmerman Edited by Barbara E. Thornbury, Evelyn Schulz

Publication date:

17 October 2017

Length of book:

212 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

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.

Introduction, Barbara E. Thornbury and Evelyn Schulz
Chapter 1: “Pulling the Thorns of Suffering: Remembering Sugamo in Itō Hiromi’s “The Thorn-Puller,” Jeffrey Angles
Chapter 2: “Pavane for a Dead Princess, or Exploring Geographies of the City, the Mind, and the Social: Fujita Yoshinaga’s Tenten and Miki Satoshi’s Adrift in Tokyo,” Kristina Iwata-Weickgenannt
Chapter 3: “On Möbius Strips, Ruins and Memory: The Intertwining of Places and Times in Hino Keizō’s Tokyo,” Mark Pendleton
Chapter 4: “Mapping Environments of Memory, Nostalgia, and Emotions in 'Tokyo Spatial (Auto)biographies,'“ Evelyn Schulz
Chapter 5: “Held Hostage to History: Okuda Hideo’s 'Olympic Ransom,'" Bruce Suttmeier
Chapter 6: “The Tokyo Cityscape, Sites of Memory, and Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s Café Lumière,” Barbara E. Thornbury
Chapter 7: “Remaking Tayama Katai’s Futon (1907) in Nakajima Kyōko’s FUTON (2003): Remembrance and Renewal of Urban Space through the Art of Rewriting,” Angela Yiu
Chapter 8: “The Child of Memory: Cityscapes in Tsushima Yūko’s Short Fiction of the 1980s,” Eve Zimmerman

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.