Performing the Politics of Translation in Modern Japan sheds new light on the adoption of concepts that motivated political theatres of resistance for nearly a century and even now underpin the collective understanding of the Japanese nation. Grounded in the aftermath of the Meiji Restoration in 1868 and analyzing its legacy on stage, this book tells the story of the crucial role that performance and specifically embodied memory played in the changing understanding of the imported Western concepts of "liberty" (jiyū) and "revolution" (kakumei). Tracing the role of the post-Restoration movement itself as an important touchstone for later performances, it examines two key moments of political crisis. The first of these is the Proletarian Theatre Movement of the 1920s and '30s, in which the post-Restoration years were important for theorizing the Japanese communist revolution. The second is in the postwar years when Rights Movement theatre and thought again featured as a vehicle for understanding the present through the past. As such, this book presents the translation of "liberty" and "revolution", not through a one-to-one correspondence model, but rather as a many-to-many relationship. In doing so, it presents a century of evolution in the dramaturgy of resistance in Japan. This book will be useful to students and scholars of Japanese history, society and culture, as well as literature and translation studies alike.

Existing scholarly discussions of theatrical realism have been predominantly limited to 19th-century European and Russian theater, with little attention paid to wider explorations and alternative definitions of the practice. Examining theater forms and artists from China, Japan, and Korea, Realisms in East Asian Performance brings together a group of theater historians to reconsider realism through the performing arts of East Asia. The book’s contributors emphasize trans-regional conversations and activate inter-Asian dialogues on theatrical production. Tracing historical trajectories, starting from premodern periods through today, the book seeks to understand realisms’ multiple origins, forms, and cultural significances, and examines their continuities, disruptions, and divergences. In its diversity of topics, geographic locations, and time periods, Realisms in East Asian Performance aims to globalize and de-center the dominant narratives surrounding realism in theater, and revise assumptions about the spectacular and theatrical forms of Asian performance. Understanding realism as a powerful representational style, chapters collectively reevaluate acts of representation on stage not just for East Asia, but for theater and performance studies more broadly.

Offering the first book-length study in English on Tsubouchi and Shakespeare, Gallimore offers an overview of the theory and practice of Tsubouchi’s Shakespeare translation and argues for Tsubouchi’s place as "the Japanese Shakespeare." Shakespeare translation is one of the achievements of modern Japanese culture, and no one is more associated with that achievement than the writer and scholar Tsubouchi Shōyō (1859–1935). This book looks at how Tsubouchi received Shakespeare in the context of his native literature and his strategies for bridging the gaps between Shakespeare’s rhetoric and his developing language. Offering a significant contribution to the field of global Shakespeare and literary translation, Gallimore explores dominant stylistic features of the early twentieth-century Shakespeare translations of Tsubouchi and analyses the translations within larger linguistic, historical, and cultural traditions in local Japanese, universal Chinese, and spiritual Western elements. This book will appeal to any student, researcher, or scholar of literary translation, particularly those interested in the complexities of Shakespeare in translation and Japanese language, culture, and society.

Modern Japanese Theatre and Performance is a collection of sixteen essays on Japanese theatre, including historical overviews of twentieth century theatre, analyses of specific productions and individuals, and consideration of the intercultural nature of modern Japanese theatre. Also included is a new translation of a 'Superkyogen' play.

The role of translation in the formation of modern Japanese identities has become one of the most exciting new fields of inquiry in Japanese studies. This book marks the first attempt to establish the contours of this new field, bringing together seminal works of Japanese scholarship and criticism with cutting-edge English-language scholarship. Collectively, the contributors to this book address two critical questions: 1) how does the conception of modern Japan as a culture of translation affect our understanding of Japanese modernity and its relation to the East/West divide? and 2) how does the example of a distinctly East Asian tradition of translation affect our understanding of translation itself? The chapter engage a wide array of disciplines, perspectives, and topics from politics to culture, the written language to visual culture, scientific discourse to children's literature and the Japanese conception of a national literature.Translation in Modern Japan will be of huge interest to a diverse readership in both Japanese studies and translation studies as well as students and scholars of the theory and practice of Japanese literary translation, traditional and modern Japanese history and culture, and Japanese women‘s studies.

What motivates a Japanese translator and theatre company to translate and perform a play about racial discrimination in the American South? What happens to a 'gay' play when it is staged in a country where the performance of gender is a theatrical tradition? What are the politics of First Nations or Aboriginal theatre in Japanese translation and 'colour blind' casting? Is a Canadian nô drama that tells a story of the Japanese diaspora a performance in cultural appropriation or dramatic innovation? In looking for answers to these questions, Theatre Translation Theory and Performance in Contemporary Japan extends discussions of theatre translation through a selective investigation of six Western plays, translated and staged in Japan since the 1960s, with marginalized tongues and bodies at their core. The study begins with an examination of James Baldwin's Blues for Mister Charlie, followed by explorations of Michel Marc Bouchard's Les feluettes ou La repetition d'un drame romantique, Tomson Highway's The Rez Sisters and Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, Roger Bennett's Up the Ladder, and Daphne Marlatt's The Gull: The Steveston t Noh Project. Native Voices, Foreign Bodies locates theatre translation theory and practice in Japan in the post-war Showa and Heisei eras and provokes reconsideration of Western notions about the complex interaction of tongues and bodies in translation and theatre when they travel and are reconstituted under different cultural conditions.

Integrating political events with cultural, economic, and intellectual movements, Modern Japan provides a balanced and authoritative survey of modern Japanese history. A summary of Japan's early history, emphasizing institutions and systems that influenced Japanese society, provides a well-rounded introduction to this essential volume, which focuses on the Tokugawa period to the present. The fifth edition of Modern Japan is updated throughout to include the latest information on Japan's international relations, including secret diplomatic correspondence recently disclosed on WikiLeaks. This edition brings Japanese history up to date in the post 9/11 era, detailing current issues such as: the impact of the Gulf Wars on Japanese international relations, the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent nuclear accident, the recent tumultuous change of political leadership, and Japan's current economic and global status. An updated chronological chart, list of prime ministers, and bibliography are also included.

The Uses of Literature in Modern Japan explores the varying uses of literature in Japan from the late Meiji period to the present, considering how creators, conveyors, and consumers of literary content have treated texts and their authors as cultural resources to be packaged, promoted, and preserved. As the printed word became a crucial form of entertainment and edification for an increasingly literate public in early 20th-century Japan, literature came to assume a variety of new uses. Touching upon a wide array of sources, Sari Kawana traces the ways in which literary works have morphed into different variants, ranging from textual (compilations, textbooks) and visual (film, manga, other media) to virtual and real world, through innovative publishing and reading practices. She takes up themes such as the materiality of texts, the role of publishers and advertising campaigns, the interplay between literature and other media, and the creation and dissemination of larger cultural fantasies tied to literary consumption. She stresses the agency and creativity with which readers engaged literary works, from divergent readings of propaganda literature to inventive adaptations of canonical texts in adjacent media, culminating in the practice of literary tourism. Moving beyond close reading of texts to look at their historical context, the book will appeal not only to scholars of modern Japanese literature but also those studying the history of the book and modern Japanese cultural history.

The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Culture collects into a single volume thirty-two state-of-the-art chapters written by international specialists, overviewing the ways in which translation studies has both informed, and been informed by, interdisciplinary approaches to culture. The book's five sections provide a wealth of resources, covering both core issues and topics in the first part. The second part considers the relationship between translation and cultural narratives, drawing on both historical and religious case studies. The third part covers translation and social contexts, including the issues of cultural resistance, indigenous cultures and cultural representation. The fourth part addresses translation and cultural creativity, citing both popular fiction and graphic novels as examples. The final part covers translation and culture in professional settings, including cultures of science, legal settings and intercultural businesses. This handbook offers a wealth of information for advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers working in translation and interpreting studies.

This book, written by a team of experts from many countries, provides a comprehensive account of the ways in which translation has brought the major literature of the world into English-speaking culture. Part I discusses theoretical issues and gives an overview of the history of translation into English. Part II, the bulk of the work, arranged by language of origin, offers critical discussions, with bibliographies, of the translation history of specific texts (e.g. the Koran, the Kalevala), authors (e.g. Lucretius, Dostoevsky), genres (e.g. Chinese poetry, twentieth-century Italian prose) and national literatures (e.g. Hungarian, Afrikaans).