Texts of the Heisei Era: Readings of Contemporary Japanese Literature

Department of Japanese Studies, Goethe University Frankfurt, 6.-7. June 2019

Call for Papers

Contemporary Japanese literature, or the "Heisei era literature" (Heisei bungaku, Urata Kenji 2015), began with the death of Emperor Hirohito (1901-1989) and the end of the Shôwa era in 1989, and has accompanied the decades to the soon to follow abdication of the Heisei-emperor Akihito on April 30 2019. It will then enter the area of historicity with the new government decree.

Heisei literature can be divided by several phases of contemporary history (Zeitgeschichte), which it in turn commentates on in representative texts: The end of the Japanese economic high of the 1980s, the Aum incident, the Kôbe earthquake, both in 1995, and the Fukushima triple disaster of March 11 2011, all of which could be discussed as caesuras. It is however not just the temporal dimension that has altered what was previously regarded as "contemporary literature" (gendai bungaku) in Japan. The concept of "literature" (bungaku) has seen alterations in many aspects. Once again the question about what was meant by "literature" in the years 1989 to 2019, a time in which, as already observed, a change in the "system" of national literature (kokubungaku) took place on many levels, needs to be raised. What forms these changes brought on the literary market or in the presentation and performance of the writer has to be discussed in detail, e.g. how the gendai bungaku canon was constructed, how different genres were valued, how established forms like the shishôsetsu evolved, and what role the so-called "schematic literature" played after the emergence of the "cellphone novel" (keitai shôsetsu). What literature will present itself in the new era? What topics and what approaches should researchers of Japanese literature choose?

A student panel is planned as part of the conference. Students of Japanese Studies will have the opportunity to present current research projects and completed works (BA / MA).

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Please send suggestions for papers (30 min.) with a title and a short synopsis (about 300 words) as well as biographical information to Heisei-Literatur@em.uni-frankfurt.de by 31 December 2018. We would appreciate an advance notice of your planned contribution at the earliest possible date.

Organization: Prof. Dr. Lisette Gebhardt (Japanese Studies, Frankfurt)