The Politics of Violence and Form in Early Modern Japanese Literature

Edo-period Japan was a golden age for commercial fiction. But how to understand the politics of this literature remains contested, in part because its defining formal characteristics seem to hold social and political realities at arm’s length. This talk offers a new approach to understanding the relationship between the challenging formal features of early modern fiction and the world beyond its pages. Focusing on depictions of violence, I will show how the dynamics of early modern literary form had the potential to alter the perception of time and space, make social and economic forces visible, defamiliarize conventions, give voice to the socially peripheral, and reshape the contours of community.

This event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP here. 

About the speaker:

David Atherton is the Thorley D. Briggs Associate Professor of Early Modern Japanese Literature in Harvard’s East Asian Languages and Civilizations Department. His first book, Writing Violence: The Politics of Form in Early Modern Japanese Literature (Columbia University Press, 2023) offers a new approach to understanding the challenging formal features of Edo-period popular fiction. Focusing on depictions of violence—one of the most fraught topics for a peaceful polity ruled over by warriors—the book reveals how the seemingly formulaic dynamics of early modern literature had the potential to alter the perception of time and space, make social and economic forces visible, defamiliarize conventions, give voice to the socially peripheral, and reshape the contours of community.