紀要論文

特集「日本のトランスナショナリズムと帝国」（第5回アルザス新世代ワークショップ） : 日本のコロニアル・アンビバレンス : ジョセフ·コンラッドと大佛次郎の政治的両義性

Feature Articles “Japanese Transnationalism and Empire” (The 5th EU-Japan Young Scholars Workshop) : Japan’s Colonial Ambivalence : Political Ambiguity of Joseph Conrad and Osaragi Jiro

jpn

18838596

https://doi.org/10.15002/00030877

法政大学国際日本学研究所

21

159

186

2024-02-10

Version of Record

Joseph Conrad is considered one of the first important analysts and critics of imperialism in the history of Western literature. However, with the development of postcolonial studies, the anti-colonialism of Conrad’s writings, began to be perceived as deeply ambivalent. The complexity of Conrad’s texts has generated new contexts and meanings, especially when read and employed within critiques around the world. The colonial ambiguity of Conrad’s texts also resonates with the colonial ambiguity of Japan who played the double role of both the colonizer and the colonized. The colonial discourse of Japan is, using Homi Bhabha’s terms, full of “cracks”, due to its intermediary position between the “East” and the “West”. In this article, I would like to trace these colonial ambivalences in the works by Osaragi Jiro – one of the biggest names of Japanese genre fiction, taishubungaku, in the light of Conrad’s ambivalent writings. My aim is to analyze the colonial and nationalist discourses of the Japanese Empire in the late 1920s, focusing on the concept of bushido. I would like to examine the “cracks” in the colonial discourse within Osaragi’s maritime novel Umi no Otoko as well as the political message of Ako-Rōshi, one of the many retellings of the Akō Incident, by reading them parallel to Conrad’s Lord Jim. I intend to compare both authors’ attitude to political engagement and attempt to pinpoint their “vagueness” as a strategy of criticizing and yet maintaining the colonial/national community.

Article

AA11914954