Performing the Politics of Translation in Modern Japan

<p><em>Performing the Politics of Translation in Modern Japan</em> 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. </p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>This book will be useful to students and scholars of Japanese history society and culture as well as literature and translation studies alike.</p>