Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie orientale

Rivista | Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie orientale
Fascicolo | 55 | 2019
Articolo | Politics, Porn and Parody in Koi suru genpatsu (2011) by Takahashi Gen’ichirō

Politics, Porn and Parody in Koi suru genpatsu (2011) by Takahashi Gen’ichirō

Abstract

This paper seeks to show how Takahashi Gen’ichirō exploits parody to show the critical function of self-reflexive literature in the novel Koisuru genpatsu. Coherently with his experience as a political activist in the sixties, Takahashi interprets literature as a revolutionary act of resistance; it can be argued that he broadly embraces the conception of art – ideally inherited by Marcuse’s aesthetic – as a space for thought and action that makes resistance to the social status quo possible. Through the analysis of significant elements of the novel’s peritexts and epitexts, this article tries to reconstruct the web of signifiers that constructs the novel, in order to show how – in Takahashi’s concept of literature - every act of speech needs to be placed in a social structure, where the agency of discursive subjects always modifies the signifying process.


Open access | Peer reviewed

Presentato: 01 Marzo 2019 | Accettato: 01 Aprile 2019 | Pubblicato 27 Giugno 2019 | Lingua: en

Keywords ParodyContemporary Japanese Literature3/11 LiteratureTakahashi Gen’ichirō


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