Fault Lines

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How can a movement like Surrealism be transferred, transplanted, or transported from one culture to another, one language to another? This book traces the creative dialogue between France and Japan in the early twentieth century, focusing on Surrealist and avant-garde writings. It opens a theoretical treatment of cultural memory, influence, visuality, writing, nostalgia, and nation to suggest a new perspective for the reading of modern Japanese culture and cross-cultural interactions. The author argues that the problem of literary influences should be recast as a problem of cultural memory, where analysis of causes and effects gives way to a deeper analysis of displacements and aftershocks, which she calls cultural "fault lines." The book analyzes the writings of Takiguchi Shuzo, Nishiwaki Junzaburo, Kitasono Katsue, and others whose work was associated explicitly with the Surrealist movement in Japan. It also incorporates readings of other experimental works and postwar performances that reflect the wider impact of these avant-garde ideas--Publisher's description.