Ecocriticism in Japan

What can ecocriticism do when engaging with Japanese literature and culture? This edited volume Ecocriticism in Japan attempts to answer this question. The contributors place themselves inside the domestic fields of production of works of art and express their concerns and ideas for the English-speaking spheres of the world. Taking up subjects ranging from the eleventh-century novel The Tale of Genji, an early twentieth-century writer Taoka Reiun, the post-WWII atomic bombing literature by women, the internationally-renowned Abe Kōbō, the Nobel laureate Ōe Kenzaburō, the world-widely popular writer Murakami Haruki, the Minamata writer Ishimure Michiko, and the anime artist Miyazaki Hayao to the recent TV anime Coppelion, a production that foresaw a devastating nuclear disaster after the Great East Japan Earthquake, this volume extricates and discusses innate, complex values of Japanese people and culture in terms of nature and environment.

Ecocriticism in Japan answers a growing need in Japan studies and contributes to the broader field of environmental studies generally.-- "The Journal of Japanese Studies"

Hisaaki Wake is assistant professor of Japanese at the US Air Force Academy.Yuki Masami is professor of human and socio-environmental studies at Kanazawa University. Keijiro Suga is professor at Meiji University.