1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910785539103321

Autore

Abel Jonathan E. <1971->

Titolo

Redacted [[electronic resource] ] : the archives of censorship in transwar Japan / / Jonathan E. Abel

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley, : University of California Press, 2012

ISBN

1-283-58412-3

9786613896575

0-520-95340-1

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (377 p.)

Collana

Asia Pacific modern ; ; 11

Disciplina

363.310952

Soggetti

Censorship - Japan - History - 20th century

Japanese literature - Censorship - History - 20th century

Expurgated books - Japan - History - 20th century

Prohibited books - Japan - History - 20th century

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

"A Philip E. Lilienthal book."

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Note on Translations -- Introduction: Archiving Censors -- Part I: Preservation -- Part II: Production -- Part III: Redaction -- Coda -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

At the height of state censorship in Japan, more indexes of banned books circulated, more essays on censorship were published, more works of illicit erotic and proletarian fiction were produced, and more passages were Xed out than at any other moment before or since. As censors construct and maintain their own archives, their acts of suppression yield another archive, filled with documents on, against, and in favor of censorship. The extant archive of the Japanese imperial censor (1923-1945) and the archive of the Occupation censor (1945-1952) stand as tangible reminders of this contradictory function of censors. As censors removed specific genres, topics, and words from circulation, some Japanese writers converted their offensive rants to innocuous fluff after successive encounters with the authorities. But, another coterie of editors, bibliographers, and writers responded to censorship by pushing back, using their encounters with suppression



as incitement to rail against the authorities and to appeal to the prurient interests of their readers. This study examines these contradictory relationships between preservation, production, and redaction to shed light on the dark valley attributed to wartime culture and to cast a shadow on the supposedly bright, open space of free postwar discourse. (Winner of the 2010-2011 First Book Award of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University" ).