Latest / New Books in Japanese Studies
Patrick Noonan, "Age of Disaffection: The Aesthetic Critique of Politics in 1960s Japan" (Columbia UP, 2025)
The 1960s in Japan have long been understood as a period of radical political engagement. But as political movements from Old Left Communism to New Left revolts appeared to fail in their efforts to revolutionize Japanese society, artists and intellectuals came to reject the ideals of postwar politics. Instead, they advocated withdrawing from political participation and making self-transformation the grounds for social change.
This provocative book uncovers a paradox at the heart of the 1960s: how political disillusionment became the basis for a new form of politics—a politics of the self…
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