Murakami Haruki: The Simulacrum in Contemporary Japanese Culture

by Michael Robert Seats

Overview

In his book,Murakami Haruki, Dr. Michael Seats offers an important philosophical intervention in the discussion of the relationship between Murakami's fiction and contemporary Japanese culture. Breaking through conventional analysis, Seats demonstrates how Murakami's first and later trilogies utilize the structure of the simulacrum, a second-order representation, to develop a complex critique of contemporary Japanese culture. By outlining the critical-fictional contours of the 'Murakami Phenomenon,' the discussion confronts the vexing question of Japanese modernity and subjectivity within the contexts of the national-cultural imaginary. Seats finds mirroring comparisons between Murakami's works and practices in current media-entertainment technologies, indicating a new politics of representation.Murakami Haruki is a critical text for scholars and students of Japanese Studies and Critical Theory, and is an essential guide for those interested in modern Japanese literature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780739107850
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	08/24/2006
Series:	Studies of Modern Japan
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.36(w) x 9.46(h) x 1.19(d)

About the Author

Michael R. Seats is senior lecturer in the Division of Language Studies at City University of Hong Kong.

Table of Contents

Part 1 Part I: Theoretical Preliminaries
Chapter 2 The Murakami Phenomenon: Critical/Fictional Thematics
Chapter 3 Simulacral Structures: Modernity, the Global and the Idea of the Japanese Novel
Chapter 4 The Theory of the Simulacrum:Trajectories and Limits
Part 5 Part II: The Critique of Orthodoxy
6 Parody, Pastiche, Metafiction: Hear the Wind Sing
7 Allegory as Modality:Pinball, 1973
8 Alleory as Landscape: A Wild Sheep Chase
9 Part III: The Return of the Referent
10 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: Contexts
11 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: Subject and Text
12 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: Stories
13 Conclusion: From Simulacrum to Differend

Editorial Reviews

Murakami Haruki reinvigorates debate regarding Murakami's ultimate purpose and place as a writer, and his role in the larger debates concerning Japanese modernity and subjectivity, and is therefore a useful addition to the body of discourse on this important novelist.

Journal of Japanese Studies

Murakami Haruki reinvigorates debate regarding Murakami's ultimate purpose and place as a writer, and his role in the larger debates concerning Japanese modernity and subjectivity, and is therefore a useful addition to the body of discourse on this important novelist.

Journal Of Japanese Studies

Murakami Haruki reinvigorates debate regarding Murakami's ultimate purpose and place as a writer, and his role in the larger debates concerning Japanese modernity and subjectivity, and is therefore a useful addition to the body of discourse on this important novelist.

The Journal of Japanese Studies - 2008

Murakami Haruki reinvigorates debate regarding Murakami's ultimate purpose and place as a writer, and his role in the larger debates concerning Japanese modernity and subjectivity, and is therefore a useful addition to the body of discourse on this important novelist.

The Journal of Japanese Studies

Murakami Haruki reinvigorates debate regarding Murakami's ultimate purpose and place as a writer, and his role in the larger debates concerning Japanese modernity and subjectivity, and is therefore a useful addition to the body of discourse on this important novelist.

The Journal Of Japanese Studies