Reading Japanese Literature as “a Reader of the World”: Transformations of Two Modes of Reading

Abstract

Drawing on the main arguments of my recent book published in Japanese, Sekai no dokusha ni tsutaeru to iu koto (“Delivering Texts to the World Reader,” Kodansha gendai shinsho, 2014), I discuss two modes of reading Japanese literature: through Japanese studies (area studies) and as world literature. Over the years these modes of reading have played important roles in facilitating an understanding of Japanese literature outside Japan, but recently these two modes began to intertwine and inform each other, as the combination of the local expertise of area studies and the wider perspective of world literature suggests future possibilities of reading Japanese literature from outside Japan/Japanese. The perspectives “from the outside” are crucial in understanding the values of Japanese literature, as attested in the notion of “survival” (Überleben) discussed in Walter Benjamin’s “The Task of the Translator.”

Keywords

• world literature
• Japanese literature as world literature
• Japanese literature in translation