Neue Tendenzen und Entwicklungen in der japanischen Gegenwartsliteratur: Versuch einer Heisei-Literaturgeschichte

The thirty years since 1989 were a turbulent era not only in world history, but also in Japan, where they overlapped with the Heisei period (1989-2019). This period was dominated by a long-lasting economic depression that began in the 1990s and the triple disaster of 2011 in the North-East region (including the nuclear power plant accidents in Fukushima). Many Japanese, especially young people, became unemployed, or were underemployed in low-paid, irregular, part-time jobs leading to precarious financial conditions. These two critical problems – the natural disasters and the stagnating economy and its consequences – are reflected in many literary works and manifest themselves in the so-called „post-disaster literature” (shinsaigo literature) as well as precarity literature (purekariāto bungaku).However, the Heisei period also gave rise to a number of new transgressive literary phenomena: The traditional literary authorities (bundan) lost influence and many young female writers successfully established themselves in the traditionally male-dominated Japanese literary world. Additionally, more and more authors of non-Japanese descent who use the Japanese language in their writings have been awarded important literary prizes, thus changing the notion of the nationally oriented “Japanese literature” into that of “Japanese language literature” (nihongo bungaku). Lastly, not only have the boundaries blurred between literary fiction, popular fiction and the “light novel”, but also media-mix phenomena have become popular and transformed the notion of literature altogether. All in all, Heisei literature exhibits tremendous innovative potential and numerous transgressive tendencies that can only bode well for the development of Japanese (language) literature as a part of world literature.The thirty years since 1989 were a turbulent era not only in world history, but also in Japan, where they overlapped with the Heisei period (1989-2019). This period was dominated by a long-lasting economic depression that began in the 1990s and the triple disaster of 2011 in the North-East region (including the nuclear power plant accidents in Fukushima). Many Japanese, especially young people, became unemployed, or were underemployed in low-paid, irregular, part-time jobs leading to precarious financial conditions. These two critical problems – the natural disasters and the stagnating economy and its consequences – are reflected in many literary works and manifest themselves in the so-called „post-disaster literature” (shinsaigo literature) as well as precarity literature (purekariāto bungaku).However, the Heisei period also gave rise to a number of new transgressive literary phenomena: The traditional literary authorities (bundan) lost influence and many young female writers successfully established themselves in the traditionally male-dominated Japanese literary world. Additionally, more and more authors of non-Japanese descent who use the Japanese language in their writings have been awarded important literary prizes, thus changing the notion of the nationally oriented “Japanese literature” into that of “Japanese language literature” (nihongo bungaku). Lastly, not only have the boundaries blurred between literary fiction, popular fiction and the “light novel”, but also media-mix phenomena have become popular and transformed the notion of literature altogether. All in all, Heisei literature exhibits tremendous innovative potential and numerous transgressive tendencies that can only bode well for the development of Japanese (language) literature as a part of world literature

Physical properties of the Dome Fuji deep ice core (review)

Recent results of physical analyses of the Dome Fuji ice core are summarized with special attention to new methods introduced in the present studies. Microphysical processes which affect the ice core records are reviewed to better understand the paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental signals stored

Performing the Author

chs wird in seinem Aufbau durch die drei Phasen des Selbstfindungsprozesses, genauer der Selbsterfindung der ‚Schriftstellerin Yū Miri‘ in ihren Werken und ihren medialen Selbstinszenierungen strukturiert. Es gelingt Iwata-Weickgenannt sehr überzeugend, das Sichtbarmachen der performativen Konstruiertheit von Identität im Werk und Leben Yūs herauszuarbeiten. Sie zeigt dabei auch, dass das Konzept der Performativität ein sehr geeigneter Bezugsrahmen für die Analyse von Identitätsbildungsprozessen ist.The Japanese-Korean author Yū Miri (born in 1968), still fairly unknown in Germany, belongs to those successful contemporary Japanese authors for whom it is typical to be known and celebrated not only for their texts but also for their excessive media presence. The multimedia staging by the author of her self as the ‘author Yū Miri’ sparks just as much interest in the Japanese public and literary scene as do her literary texts. In her book, published by the Munich-based house Iudicium Verlag, Iwata-Weickgenannt provides not only a comprehensive overview of Yū’s literary works published between the years of 1994 and 2005, but she also thematizes the medial representation of ‘Yū Miri’ in her analyses. In the first section of her book, Iwata-Weickgenannt provides a very good overview of the field out of which Yū’s identity problematic as a Japanese-Korean author arises. The second main section of the book is structured along the three phases of the self-discovery process, or rather the self-creation process, o

Menschenrechte und kulturelle Positionierungen in asiatischen Frauennetzwerken: Zur Diffussion des Menschenrechtsdiskurses in der reflexiven Moderne

Pfaff-Czarnecka J. Menschenrechte und kulturelle Positionierungen in asiatischen Frauennetzwerken: Zur Diffussion des Menschenrechtsdiskurses in der reflexiven Moderne. In: Mae M, Saal B, eds. Transkulturelle Genderforschung - Ein Studienbuch zum Verhältnis von Kultur und Geschlecht. Geschlecht und Gesellschaft. Vol 9. Wiesbaden: VS, Verl. für Sozialwiss.; 2007: 271-301