Nation and Aesthetics

Nation and Aesthetics is a unique attempt to examine the ambiguous nature of nationalism and nation by examining them through aesthetics. In this translation by Jonathan E. Abel, Darwin H. Tsen, and Hiroki Yoshikuni, Karatani grasps the modern social formation as a nexus of three different "modes of exchange", namely capital-nation-state. Nation here plays the role of complementing capitalism and the state. Benedict Anderson defined nation as an "imaginedcommunity". Through rethinking Kant, Karatani suggests that "imagination" here is not a mere fancy, but very real, in the sense that it mediates state and capital. Usually imagination is regarded as fancying what is not present here. Kant grasped imagination as a faculty to imagine what we can understand butcannot sense; that is, to say, a faculty to mediate reason and sensibility. This observation provided the foundation to Modern aesthetics, which in the course of time became an important source of nationalism. In Italy, Germany, and Japan, nationalism appeared as fascism. They found in aesthetics a moment to go beyond capitalism and the state. The key to go beyond nation, Karatani argues, lies also in the thoughts of Kant, a cosmopolitan and an advocate of a world republic. It is well-known that the League of Nations was formed after First World War under the influence of his "Perpetual Peace". Karatani draws attention to the overlooked fact that around the same time Freud made a radical revision of his notion of the "superego". Karatani introduces article nine of Japan's postwar constitution, which renounces the right to wage war,as a crystallization of Kant's ideal of peace and Freud's superego. By providing a unique explanation of, and ways to counter, current nationalistic and imperialistic tendencies, Nation and Aesthetics argues that theories of Kant and Freud, which are usually understood to contrast, are deeply linkedand suggest ways to go beyond capital-nation-state.

"This welcome collection of articles by Karatani asks timely and urgent questions, primarily about the nature of nationalism and its "elective affinity" with Romanticist, aesthetic ideology. In a handsomely presented volume in Oxford's ongoing series "Global Asias," Karatani draws together a collection of articles, previously published in scholarly journals, that are situated at the intersection of nation, state, and economy, a "transcritical" place of reflection he likens to a "Borromean knot". Those readers expecting a difficult traverse through Kantian and Freudian texts will find, instead, a sustained historical reflection on globalization, the East-West divide, the construction of "orientalism," the museum-effect, and the rise of regional associationism out of communities of shared sympathy (i.e., taste). The articles are translated into a smooth and flowing English, and the chapter-by-chapter argument is compelling and thought provoking." --J. G. Moore, CHOICE

Kojin Karatani is an internationally renowned literary theorist. Previously, he was a professor at Hosei University in Tokyo, Kinki University in Osaka, and Columbia University. Among the dozens of books that he has written in Japanese, four have been translated into English: History and Repetition; Transcritique: Kant and Marx; Architecture as Metaphor: Language, Number, Money.