Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, one of the most widely read and translated authors of the Taishō period, wrote some two dozen short stories centered on the theme of Christianity during his brief career. In this paper, I examine these works, known as kirishitanmono, both in the context of the author’s oeuvre and the intellectual environment of his day. The kirishitanmono are examined for a pervasive use of obscure language and textual density which serves to exoticize Christianity and frame it as an essentially foreign religion. This religion becomes a metaphor for European ideology, which is criticized for its incompatibility with East Asian traditions and, in turn, presented as a metaphor for the impossibility of intercultural dialogue. Finally, I examine the image of the martyr, as presented in both the kirishitanmono and other religious stories, in which the convictions of martyrs are elevated as a pure form of ideology in defiance of modernity.

The end of the Second World War and Japan’s surrender are the established paradigm for understanding postwar Japanese society. The formulation of the new Constitution and the establishment of the postwar democracy mark a major historical turnaround for Japan. Since he debuted as a writer in 1958, Ōe Kenzaburō’s (1935 - ) published literary works are closely related to the postwar history of Japan. Ōe has been an outspoken supporter of the pacifist Constitution and “postwar democracy.” Ōe’s stories about the war are characterized by a realistic depiction at the same time as always narrating his stories in an imaginary world. In his works the past history and the future are intricately combined in the depiction of contemporary society. By doing so, Ōe creates an ambiguous image of contemporary Japan. Ōe’s main question in his early works is the achievement of shutaisei both in postwar Japanese society and Japanese literature. The main protagonists as well as the author protest against the emperor-centered history. They attempt to illustrate another history from their own viewpoint.

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<p dir="ltr">In this thesis, I examine three popular modern Japanese female writers—Takahashi Takako (1932-2013), Ogawa Yōko (1962- ), and Murata Sayaka (1979- ), who all debuted after the peak of Japan’s bubble economy in the late 1980s. Focusing on the works of these three authors, I investigate how they deal with the theme of pregnancy, children, fertility, and family structure, and how they are original in the world of Japanese literature. Since they are all women, in terms of feminist context, I also look into how differently they respond to gender issues from the prior generation of female authors.</p><p dir="ltr">In the Introduction, I begin with an examination of how Japanese society has changed fertility and family structure during the lifetime of women writers, which the author of this thesis aims to depict. Through an analysis of themes such as pregnancy, childbearing, fertility, and family dynamics, these authors offer nuanced reflections on the evolving roles and experiences of Japanese women within the context of a rapidly changing society. Despite their unique literary styles, they share a common interest in challenging traditional notions of womanhood and motherhood, often conflicting with societal pressures.</p><p dir="ltr">In Chapter One, the focus is on Takahashi Takako's narratives, which critique the conventional female trajectory in Japan and the societal pressures surrounding parenthood. In Chapter Two, the examination shifts to Ogawa Yōko's portrayal of female protagonists navigating societal expectations and rejecting traditional paths to womanhood and pregnancy. Finally, Chapter Three delves into Murata Sayaka's exploration of themes related to nonconformity, gender roles, marriage, and the evolving dynamics of Japanese society.</p><p dir="ltr">By analyzing these authors' works, this thesis contributes to a deeper understanding of Japanese women's experiences and societal dynamics, offering insights into contemporary issues of gender, identity, and autonomy in Japan.</p>

In my thesis, I examine the discursive space of the detective fiction genre following Kasai Kiyoshi's periodization in his two-volume seminal work Tantei shosetsuron (The Theory of Detective Fiction, 1998). I investigate how Japanese detective fiction has developed in relation to Japan's modernization, industrialization, nationalism, and globalization, specifically in the 1920s-30s, the 1950s-60s, and from the 1990s to present. By historicizing the discursive formation of the genre in decisive moments in Japanese history, I examine how Japanese detective fiction delineated itself as a modern popular literature differentiating itself from serious literature (junbungaku) and also from other genres of popular fiction (taishu bungaku). My study exposes the socio-political, cultural and literary conditions that conditioned the emergence of the detective fiction genre as a problematic of Japanese society, stitching fantasy and desire for the formation of the national subject in the cultural domain. I investigate the dynamics through which Japanese detective fiction negotiates its particularity as a genre differentiating itself from the Western model and domestically from the conventional crime stories of the Edo and Meiji periods. Chapters One through Three of my study examine Japan's socio-cultural contexts after the Russo-Japanese war, specifically magazine culture and the rise of the detective fiction genre (Chapter I), the I-novel tradition and its relation to the genre (Chapter II), and representations of Tokyo as an urban center, focusing on Edogawa Ranpo's "Inju" (Beast in the Shadows, 1928) (Chapter III). Chapters Four through Six investigate the socio-cultural contexts after World War II, especially Japan's democratization in the 1950s-60s and the rearticulation of the genre through repeated debates about authenticities in Japanese detective fiction (Chapter IV), and the transition from tantei shosetsu (detective fiction) to suiri shosetsu (mystery) focusing on Yokomizo Seishi's Honjin satsujin jiken (The Honjin Murder Case, 1946) and Matsumoto Seicho's Ten to sen (Points and Lines, 1957) as representative works of the two trends (Chapter V), and finally the postmodern "return" to the prewar tradition in the 1990s (Chapter VI).

Situated in environmental history and ecocriticism, this thesis traces the emergence of modern Japanese literature at the beginning of the twentieth century. Using agential realism and its concepts ‘diffraction’ and ‘becoming’, this thesis conducts an anti-essential ecocritical analysis. It aims to overcome recurring dualisms in literary analyses and to trace negotiations of concepts such as ‘nature’ and ‘self’ in modern Japanese literature. The thesis scrutinises ‘diffractions’ between the subject and the object in novels and through very acts of producing novels. These ‘diffractions’ are analysed in relation to ‘becomings’ of the concept ‘nature’ as well as ‘literature’ in the context of Japanese modernisation. Based on diverse struggles in ‘becomings’ in modern literary history, the thesis concludes with questioning the cliché of Japanese culture (the lack of absolute ‘self’ and ‘love of nature’) and also comments on analyses of ‘diffractions’ as a viable method for ecocritical analyses or the ‘ecologisation’ of literary analyses.

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