Rethinking Identity in Modern Japan

This volume is a major reconsideration of Japanese late modernity and national hegemony which examines the creative and academic works of a number of influential Japanese thinkers. The author situates the process of Japanese knowledge production in the interface between the immediate historical and the wider socio-economic and politico-cultural contexts accompanying the Japanese post-war experience of modernity. This book will be of great value to anyone interested in the history of contemporary Japanese culture and society.

Yumiko Iida

1. Approaching the Question of Japanese Identity and Nationalism 2. 'Overcoming Modernity': Towards an Aesthetic Politics of Identity 3. Uneasy with the Modern: the Postwar Revival of the Modern and the Return of Dissent 4. The Age of Rapid Economic Growth and Romantic Resurgence - Mass Society and the Erosion of Popular Politics and the Social Imaginary 5. Back to Identity: 'Postmodernity,' Nihonjinron , and the Desire of the Other 6. Japan in the 1990s and Beyond - Identity Crises in Late Modern Conditions 7. Japanese Nationalism in the Late Modern World