This thesis presents an analysis of Japanese modernist texts from the 1930s, with an emphasis on the writings of Takami Jun (1907-1965), Ishikawa Jun (1899-1987) and Dazai Osamu (1909-1948). Rather than discuss these experiments within the problematic of influence and see them as secondary gestures imitating the techniques of Gide or Joyce, I attempt to show that Japanese modernist fiction is deeply implicated in its cultural, political and technological moment. 1 begin with a mapping of the historical and discursive forces behind the so-called cultural revival (bungei fukko) and the revolt against the epistemic regime of Westernized modernity: its soulless positivism, its logic of instrumentality which objectified nature and the historical teleologies which inevitably relegated Japan to a secondary place. I examine the works of Takami, Ishikawa and Dazai in this context, against close-ups of specific material and discursive developments. The transgressions and dislocations of linear narrative in Takami Jun's novel Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot (Kokyu wasureu beki, 1936) are read as radical deconstructions of the deeply ideological discourse of tenko (the official term for the political conversion of leftists) as a regeneration of the self, as the return to a natural organic Japaneseness. The narrative of Ishikawa Jun's Fugen (Fugen, 1936) is structured by dualistic tropes which can be seen as configurations of mediation and unity; I explore the meaning of these narrative strategies against the collapse of political mediation in the mid-1930s and the swell of fascist longings for oneness with the emperor. The marked reflexivity of the stories in Dazai Osamu's first published collection The Final Years (Bannen, 1936) is discussed in the context of the profound anxieties generated by the accelerated logic of cultural reproduction and the technologically altered texture of experience. I argue that in their shared emphasis on discursive mediation and the materiality of language, the texts of Takami, Ishikawa and Dazai become figures of resistance to a nativism which strove for immediate authenticity and abandoned representation for the metaphysics of timeless Japaneseness.

It has been said many times that a picture is worth a thousand words. This familiar proverb describes the idea that complex stories can be told with just a single image and can give you as much or more information than a written or spoken text. One picture. One thousand words. It is in this limited space I have written. This thesis is a collection of prose written in response to photographs/images that have been taken, created, or found, and has been influenced by the combination of the visual and textual mediums of my disciplines (digital media and creative writing): striking images with textual commentary. While observing these photographs, readers bring with them emotional baggage, preconceived notions, memories and feelings. The written commentary (e.g., stories) attached to the photographs adds a new dimension to what the reader sees. The natural ambiguity of a photograph lends itself to conflicting interpretations, all of which enhance the work and bring us closer to a new and deeper meaning via textual-reader interaction.

The thesis consists of the novel The Fox and the Mirror and an accompanying exegesis. The novel is an historical fantasy set in a world based on early medieval (12-13th century) Japan. The main characters are a young female shaman, Hatsu, and a young warrior’s assistant, Sada, who is a Buddhist believer. When Hatsu’s village and shrine are destroyed by warriors and her summoning mirror is stolen, she is abandoned by her kami . To experience the kami’s presence again, she must follow the thief and retrieve the mirror before it can be used to resurrect an ancient evil. Sada must capture Hatsu and bring her back to his lord, or his family will suffer. Yet he is entranced by Hatsu and feels guilt at the destruction of her village. He must choose whether to abandon his former life and stay with Hatsu, or betray her. In the novel I have tried to invoke the feel of a place and time where the supernatural is as real as the physical world; I also try to imagine how a religion as alien to Japanese native beliefs as Buddhism became a part of that country’s spiritual culture. In the exegesis I reflect upon how I used various kinds of history, both written and unwritten, to build the world, characters and narratives of The Fox and the Mirror, and thereby explore some ways in which historical fantasy, as a sub-genre of historical fiction, is capable of presenting an ‘authentic’ view of the past, in spite of its non-realistic nature. I identify three main ways historical fantasy writers can provide an authentic view of the past: by using telling details from an historical era; by incorporating documented events and persons into the story; and by portraying the world as people in the past believed it to be. Historical fantasy is different from realistic historical fiction in that it can more easily incorporate elements belonging to shared cultural heritage, such as beliefs regarding the dead and the supernatural. This characteristic involves writers in research using material that involves other ways of knowing the past—in particular the expressions of belief such as religion, popular customs, folk tales, and oral history. With the broadening of our historiological perspectives in the postmodern climate, historical fantasy based on non-documentary forms of history may come to be seen as another way of knowing the past.