Tenkō : cultures of political conversion in transwar Japan

This book approaches the concept of tenko (political conversion) as a response to the global crisis of interwar modernity, as opposed to a distinctly Japanese experience in postwar debates. Tenko connotes the expressions of ideological conversion performed by members of the Japanese Communist Party, starting in 1933, whereby they renounced Marxism and expressed support for Japan's imperial expansion on the continent. Although tenko has a significant presence in Japan's postwar intellectual and literary histories, this contributed volume is one of the first in Englishm language scholarship to approach the phenomenon. International perspectives from both established and early career scholars show tenko as inseparable from the global politics of empire, deeply marked by an age of mechanical reproduction, mediatization and the manipulation of language. Chapters draw on a wide range of interdisciplinary methodologies, from political theory and intellectual history to literary studies. In this way, tenko is explored through new conceptual and analytical frameworks, including questions of gender and the role of affect in politics, implications that render the phenomenon distinctly relevant to the contemporary moment. Tenko: Cultures of Political Conversion in Transwar Japan will prove a valuable resource to students and scholars of Japanese and East Asian history, literature and politics.

Part 1: Conceptual Excursions 1. 'Ideological Conversion as Historical Catachresis: Coming to Terms with tenko' 2. 'The Historical Origins of tenko as an Intellectual and Social Issue: Marxism - Thought Control - Media' 3. 'Tenko in Korea: Revealing the Critical Threshold of Colonial Empire' 4. 'Takeuchi Yoshimi and the Problem of tenko' Part 2: Literary Possibilities 5. 'Literature and Affect: Proletarian Literature as Discovery' 6. 'Common Tropes and Themes in Japan's tenko Literature' 7. "Doublethink" in Seisan bungaku Theory' 8. "Truth": The tenko of Nakano Shigeharu and Hayashi Fusao' 9. 'The Disjointed Narratives and Fractured Subjects of Takami Jun' 10. 'Crossing the Void: Shimaki Kensaku's Search for Meaning in "Leprosy" and "Blindness" 11. 'The Tenko of Anarchist Poets: Agrarian and Cinematic Latencies' 12. 'A Proletarian Writer in the Showcase Window: The Shifting Representation of "the Masses" in Sata Ineko's Kurenai' 13. 'Mythic Reality, Battlefield Survival and Psycho-social Conversion in Yoshida Mitsuru's The End of Battleship Yamato'