Lisette Gebhardt

Yuki Masami (Eds.)

Literature and Art after

“Fukushima”

Four Approaches

BERLIN

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 Reihe zur japanischen Literatur und Kultur
Literature and Art after German Studies on Japanese Literature and Culture

“Fukushima”
Volume 7

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 „Fukushima“.  Wissen er / fahren:  Vor Ort 5 Preface 7

Contents Preface
Literature and Art After Fukushima

Preface ...............................................................................................
Lisette Gebhardt
Post-3/11 Literature: The Localisation of Pain –
Internal Negotiations and Global Consciousness ..........................
Yuki Masami
Post-Fukushima Discourses on Food and Eating:
Analysing Political Implications and Literary Imagination ...........
Ina Hein
Narratives of Trauma and Healing in the Aftermath of Japan’s
Three-fold Catastrophe: Yoshimoto Banana’s Sweet Hereafter .. ....
Lisa Mundt
Back to Politics: Artistic Disobedience
in the Wake of “Fukushima” ............................................................
Contributors ..................................................................................... 109
Nachtrag / German Afterword ......................................................... 111
Index ................................................................................................. 113
7 In September 2012, the contributors of this volume formed a panel
entitled “Literature and Art After Fukushima” at the British Associa-
tion for Japanese Studies (BAJS) Conference, which was held at the
University of East Anglia, Norwich. Employing different approaches
to discuss literary and artistic responses to the disaster at Tokyo Elec-
11 tric Power Company’s (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant, the
papers given at the panel supported each other in a way that allows for
a multifaceted view of what “Fukushima” represents. We felt that these
voices are worthy of being printed and shared in a small book form.
37 While bringing “Fukushima” into focus, at the BAJS panel we
attempted to discuss how Japanese literature and art responded to the
challenge of the three-fold catastrophe of earthquake, tsunami, and
nuclear meltdown in the northeastern Japan, a disaster which is called
53 3/11 or the Great East Japan Earthquake (東日本大震災 Higashi Nihon
Daishinsai). Our shared interest lied in how writers and theatre/perfor-
mance artists act in response to an immense human disaster which also
ravaged and wiped out human conceptual realms to the extent that
77 many writers and artists demonstrated nothing but their inability to
give expression to what the disaster did – and meant – to them. Clearly
there was an emerging environment in which writers and artists were
urged to work on the task of exploring ways in which to grasp and give
shape to the post-Fukushima age. It is the second time that Japan has
had to cope with radioactive contamination, but this time the catastro-
phe was not due to the ravages of war but rather due to the hubris of
economy and science.

Repoliticisation and healing

Literary and artistic responses to 3/11 cover a wide spectrum, rang-

ing from the overtly political (eg. concerning issues such as the pos-
sibility of art to excite discussions on a more emancipated Japanese

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 8 Preface
democracy, as well as on citizens’ empowerment and more transpar-
ency in the political decision process) to the apolitical (eg. Yoshimoto
Banana’s literary stance, as Ina Hein examines in her essay collected in
this book). While asking whether artistic engagement with 3/11 aims
at a (re)politicisation of art or at using art in a therapeutic way to heal
a traumatised nation, the contributors to this book focus on a corpus of
works, written or staged, which immediately responded to 3/11, thus
providing a baseline study of Japanese post-Fukushima literature and
art. Covering different aspects, the four essays included in this volume
delineate how literature and art perceive Zeitgeschichte, to communi-
cate the impressions of sensitive witnesses and the Heisei-type of the
engaged intellectual. In this first overview, which foremost intends to
delineate and describe the articulations of the Japanese artists, refer-
ences to the usual theoretical body is being consciously avoided.
Lisette Gebhardt draws a detailed picture of a Japanese literary
scene divided into two fractions: a critical camp of writers that attack
the “Japanese system” and a conservative camp that calls for “old tradi-
tions” in order to reconstruct a Japanese identity and a “sound nation.”
Gebhardt also points out how Japanese thinkers try to mediate the
catastrophe globally and to restore the loss of reputation Japan has suf-
fered with the nuclear damage.
Ina Hein analyses Yoshimoto Banana’s narrative Sweet Hereafter
(2011), that does not directly address the events of 3/11, but links them
together by dedicating the novel to all the people who have experienced
the triple catastrophe. Hein shows how Yoshimoto redirects the device
of “healing” (iyashi), which has been one of the main characteristics of
her oeuvre so far, in order to connect her novel to the wider context of
Japan’s traumatic experience.
Yuki Masami discusses literary representations of post-3/11 food-
scapes, contrasting it with the language used in a popular social and
political campaign of eating food from stricken areas as a gesture of
support. In particular, Yuki analyses Taguchi Randy’s literary attempt
to question, explore, and redefine human relationships with the envi-
ronment, a topic which Yuki has been exploring and was first addressed
in her paper given at the conference “Comparing Fukushima and Cher-
nobyl: Social and Cultural Dimensions of the Two Nuclear Catastro-
phes” which was held in Frankfurt, Germany, in March 2012.
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Preface 9
Lisa Mundt discusses the political potential of theatre today, repre-
sented for example by such artists as the members of the performing
art collective Chim↑Pom and the director of the ensemble Port B, Taka-
yama Akira, groups which clearly demonstrate their desire to contri-
bute to a change in Japanese society.
“Discover Tomorrow”: Toward Japan’s future
Over a year has passed since the BAJS Conference in Norwich, but the
discussions developed in this book remain relevant. While the Japanese
cultural scene continues dealing with the Great East Japan Earthquake
and its consequences, the arguments do not seem to demonstrate sub-
stantial shifts in focus, approach, or direction. Many artists proclaim
that, with the disaster of Fukushima Daiichi, an irreversible paradigm
shift has begun. They are protesting against a “Japanese system” whose
failures are not only limited to the damaged nuclear plant, insisting
that a day of reckoning has come for the nation’s technocratic sys-
tem which has only accelerated since the 1960s. Others seek above all
to show their solicitousness and to encourage the victims in Tôhoku,
facilitating local reconstruction, and clearing a horizon of hope for the
future of both Tôhoku and the nation as a whole.
Japan just recently gained a quite impressive yet controversial per-
spective for its future – the IOC decided on September 7, 2013 in Bue-
nos Aires to award the Summer Olympics 2020 to the city of Tôkyô.
The slogan of the bid was “Discover Tomorrow”. Prime Minister Abe
Shinzô promised that the metropolis would be a safe place for the
games, and that the situation in northeastern Japan was “under con-
trol”, adding that “It has never done or will do any damage to Tôkyô”,
150 miles away from Fukushima Daiichi.
Summer Olympics 2020 in the capital may provide support for
the Japanese economy and certainly will lift the sunken morale for
the nation, too. As far as the first cheerful reactions of the committee
suggest, the event may bring the desired motivation to move forward
with courage. The risk of Fukushima can be trivialised and neglected
by Tôkyô, if we follow Prime Minister Abe’s comments. However,
the successful bid is in the end likely to symbolise efforts to overcome
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 10 Preface Internal Negotiations and Global Consciousness 11

Fukushima-related problems. Now, Japan has to cope outright with the Post-3/11 Literature: The Localisation of Pain –
situation in Tôhoku and finally take responsibility not only for Tôkyô
Internal Negotiations and Global Consciousness
but for the world. Forthcoming discussions in literary and art scenes
should demonstrate various perspectives from which to critically think
Lisette Gebhardt
about the games and if they really will mark a positive turning point
for Japan.

Lisette Gebhardt 1. Mapping a catastrophe:

Yuki Masami Fukushima, Japan and the world
October 2013
The three-fold catastrophe of 11 March, 2011 has changed the global
image of Japan as well as the country’s image of itself. Doubts have
arisen concerning Japan’s status as an advanced technological nation.
“Fukushima”1 has come to signify, therefore, not only the human disas-
ter but also the damage to Japan’s reputation. Within Japan, politicians
have been accused of a lack of professionalism and integrity; they have
also been accused of lying to the public.2
Indeed the policy makers who relied on the electricity company
TEPCO for information about the damaged nuclear power plant initi-
ally pursued a strategy of appeasement.3 In the long term this led to the
nuclear disaster being underplayed. There is still a tendency to speak
of the catastrophe as merely a regional event, limited to the northeast
of the country.4 In the capital the cold shutdown was finally acknow-
ledged and a “new normality” was proclaimed. In Tôhoku, northeas-
tern Japan, however, this level of adaptation and acceptance has still

1 “Fukushima” has been put in inverted commas because the name of the place has
become a multivalent key term which amalgamates several aspects of this triple catastro-
phe.
2 The government’s information policy in particular was subject to criticism (see for
instance the statement by Hama Noriko, Vice Dean of Dôshisha University, quoted in the
article “Japan government on nuclear crisis: Not lying, not telling the truth”, 2011). The
full political background of the catastrophe has not yet been explored; tentative thoughts
are offered in Kingston (2012).
3 The official report by the Japanese Government of June 2011 is a first attempt to
investigate the events.
4 Regionalising “Fukushima” does not mean that the government in Tôkyô has conti-
nuously made help available to victims in the area. Clear-up operations and the building
of emergency shelters have been relatively successful but the resolution of the problems
posed by the damaged reactors, the disposal of radioactive material and the administration
of the restricted area were less satisfactory. For awareness of the problems see the essay by
Gen’yû Sôkyû (2011).

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Post-Fukushima Discourses on Food and Eating 37
Post-Fukushima Discourses on Food and Eating:
Analysing Political Implications
and Literary Imagination
Yuki Masami
1. Introduction
There is no such thing as safe food, says Koide Hiroaki (b. 1949), an
anti-nuclear nuclear engineer at the Kyoto University Reactor Research
Institute. Koide has emerged as a leading spokesperson for nuclear
issues since 11 March 2011, when an earthquake and subsequent tsu-
nami hit the northeastern part of Japan and, at least in part, caused a
meltdown at Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCO) Fukushima
Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Though only recently gaining a wider
audience, Koide has continually warned against the wide-ranging
global circulation of radioactive-contaminated food since the disaster
in reactor number four at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the
Ukraine on 26 April, 1986. According to Koide’s mantra, a nuclear-age
foodscape is illustrated, showing that there is no clean, safe food, and
what is presented to us is a choice between foods that are the least
contaminated, less contaminated, more contaminated, or the most
contaminated. This immediately brings about a series of questions. For
instance, what standard is applied to determine the degree of contami-
nation? What makes such a standard legitimate? How does a standard
of contamination influence individual and societal attitudes towards
food? And what do such standards really mean?
A major aim of this essay is to discuss discourses on food and eating
in a nuclear age, especially those that took place after the earthquake,
tsunami, and nuclear meltdown in March 2011. The northeast of
Japan, where the mega earthquake and the subsequent tsunami hit,
was known for its productive agriculture and fisheries. This is clearly
shown by the high percentage of the population working in primary
industries in the region. Statistics show that, as of October 2005, the
population involved in primary-industry in Fukushima, Miyagi, and
Narratives of Trauma and Healing 53
Narratives of Trauma and Healing in the
Aftermath of Japan’s Three-fold Catastrophe:
Yoshimoto Banana’s Sweet Hereafter
Ina Hein
1. Introduction
This paper, rather than starting from the broader perspective of
“Japanese literature after 3/11”, focuses on a single author: Yoshimoto
Banana, who is not regarded as a political writer but rather as a pro-
ducer of popular, easy-to-read bestselling novels, short stories and
essays. Yoshimoto has become exceptionally popular with her writing,
which might well be placed within the context of iyashi literature,1 not
only in Japan itself but also outside of
Japan in the late 1980s and throughout
the 1990s, and, accordingly, her work
has been (and continues to be) exten-
sively covered by literary criticism and
research.
In order to provide a backdrop against
which Yoshimoto’s most recent novel,
Suîto hiâfutâ (Sweet Hereafter, Yoshimoto
2011a), will be analysed, a brief sketch
of the general characteristics and devel-
opments of her writing over the past 25
years will first be presented. The central
question for the subsequent analysis of
Suîto hiâfutâ will be, by what means – Cover: Yoshimoto Banana
Suîto hiâfutâ, NHK Shuppan,
2012.
1 The term iyashi could be translated as a kind of emotional and sometimes even spiritual
‘healing’. For a closer look at the iyashi concept and its mode of operation in contemporary
Japanese literature, Gebhardt 2004.
Back to Politics 77
Back to Politics: Artistic Disobedience
in the Wake of “Fukushima”
Lisa Mundt
1. “People will be questioned for the way they lived”:
First thoughts on Fukushima
Artists, playwrights and directors were among the first and most
radical voices to comment on Fukushima. Renowned personalities
from theatre, performing arts, and fine arts such as playwrights Sakate
Yôji (b. 1963, Rinkôgun), Okada Toshiki (b. 1973, Chelfitsch), and Tada
Junnosuke (b. 1976, Tôkyô Deathlock), director and performance artist
Takayama Akira (b. 1969), and the artist collective Chim↑Pom spoke
out about Fukushima immediately after the disaster and expressed
their desire to contribute to the much felt need for change in Japanese
society. All of them found challenging and creative ways to answer
to the catastrophe1 – and, as Niino Morihiro (b. 1958), a professor at
Rikkyô University, Tôkyô, notes, even playwrights who “had not been
enthusiastic about depicting solidarity, have begun to take up the ethi-
cal question of solidarity with the victims” (Niino 2012).
In an essay published in the German theatre journal Theater der
Zeit (Contemporary Theatre), Okada Toshiki, playwright, director and
leader of the Chelfitsch theatre troupe, notes that he only became aware
of the enormous potential of theatre once the earthquake struck Japan
on 11 March: “It is understood that art is vital to society […]. Before
the catastrophic earthquake I would not have believed this at all. Today,
1 While a considerable amount of literature has been published on pre-modern and mod-
ern Japanese theatre and drama up to the 1960s, there has been little discussion about con-
temporary Japanese theatre and performing arts, especially on the interrelations between
theatre and politics. Preliminary results on this topic and on the impact of “Fukushima” on
theatre and performing arts in Japan have already been presented in German and English
in several lectures (e.g. British Association for Japanese Studies in Norwich, UK, AAS-ICAS
Joint Conference in Honolulu, German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ) in Tôkyô). This
essay is based on a German paper published in the Lesebuch “Fukushima” (“Fukushima”
Reader) in Summer 2013. The results presented here will be discussed further in my
upcoming dissertation on theatre and politics in contemporary Japanese theatre.
Contributors 109
Contributors
Lisette Gebhardt is since 2003 professor of Japanese Literature and
Culture at Goethe University, Frankfurt/Germany. She publishes on
literature, literature and religion as well as on identity discourses and
globalisation in modern Japan. In 2012, she edited a handbook on con-
temporary Japanese authors and literary trends in Japan. Since spring
2011 she commented on the Japanese „earthquake literature“ (shinsai
bungaku) as well as on the reactions of Japanese authors and intellec-
tuals towards the three-fold catastrophe in northern Japan. Together
with Steffi Richter (University of Leipzig) she edited two volumes on
the Fukushima-case.
Ina Hein has studied at Trier University (Germany) and Ôbirin Uni-
versity (Tôkyô). In her doctoral thesis she analysed constructions of
gender relationships in the works of contemporary Japanese women
writers. She was member of the DFG-funded project „Turning (back)
to Asia in Japanese literature, media and popular culture“ (Trier Uni-
versity) in 2003 and researcher/lecturer at the Institute for Modern
Japan, Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf (Germany) until May
2010. Since June 2010, she is professor for cultural studies at the
Department for Japanese Studies, University of Vienna (Austria). Her
research focuses on: contemporary Japanese literature, gender relations
in Japan, constructions of Asia in Japanese literature and media, the
discourse on cultural differences in contemporary Japan, Okinawa in
Japanese literature, film and television.
Lisa Mundt majored in Japanese Studies and Theatre, Film & Media
Studies at Goethe University, Frankfurt, from 2002 to 2009. Since 2009,
she has been a doctoral candidate at the department of Japanese Stu-
dies at Goethe University. In 2010, she was granted a PhD fellowship
at the German Institute of Japanese Studies (DIJ), Tôkyô. Her research
focus is on contemporary Japanese theatre and performing arts, espe-
cially on artistic discourses on social and political issues. Lisa Mundt is
currently a lecturer at the department of Japanese Studies in Frankfurt
110 Contributors Index
and has worked as an organizer and interpreter for guest performances Name index
by Japanese theatre troupes at several venues in Germany.
Yuki Masami is professor at Kanazawa University where she teaches Abe Kazushige 16, 20, 22
environmental literature and English as a Foreign Language. She Abe Shinzô 9, 30
received her doctoral degree in English with an emphasis of literature Asada Jirô 19
and environment from University of Nevada, Reno, in 2000. She has Atôda Takashi 26
been publishing books and articles on American and Japanese envi- Azuma Hiroki 15, 23
ronmental literature with special focuses on topics such as literary
soundscapes, urban nature, and discourses on food and toxicity. Her Banks, Russell 67–70
most recent book, Mizu no oto no kioku (Remembering the Sound of Barong 56
Water: Essays in Ecocriticism, 2010), examines relationships between Bin Laden 28
language, imagination, and the environment in works of contempo-
rary writers including Ishimure Michiko, Morisaki Kazue, and Terry Cohen, Leonard 67
Tempest Williams. Recently she has been researching environmental
imagination in discourses of food and eating, a topic which includes lit- Diaz, Junot 31
erary response to the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters which have
continued to unsettle local and global attitudes on food. Felshin, Nina 104
Fujiwara Masahiko 23
Furukawa Hideo 16, 26–29
Gen’yû Sôkyû 11, 14, 15
Hama Noriko 11
Harada Masazumi 40
Hase Seishû 30
Hatasawa Seigo 80
Hayashi Kyôko 57
Hayashi Mariko 30
Henmi Yô 12, 13, 16, 30
Hirano Keiichirô 31
Ibuse Masuji 59
Ichikawa Makoto 16
Ikezawa Natsuki 15, 31, 44–50
Iokibe Makoto 13, 14
Ishihara Shintarô 23, 25, 86
113
Ishii Shinji 31
Ishimure Michiko 40, 110
Iyer, Pico 31
Kahlo, Frida 61
Kakizaki Jun’ichi 91
Kakuta Mitsuyo 16, 31
Karashima, David 33
Katayama Kyôichi 20
Kawakami Hiromi 15, 29, 30
Kawakami Mieko 31
Kayama Rika 13
Kimoto Takeshi 26–28
King, Stephen 54
Koide Hiroaki 37, 40–42
Kônosu Yukiko 31
Lehman 21
Luke, Elmer 31
Matsuie Masashi 31
Mayama Jin 21, 22
Medoruma Shun 59
Miyadai Shinji 13, 15
Miyazawa Kenji 28
Murakami Haruki 17–19, 24, 25,
54–58
Nakamura Fuminori 12
Nakasone Yasuhiro 14
Niino Morihiro 77–80, 83, 89, 103
Nishidô Kôjin 88
Nishimura Kenta 16
Ôe Kenzaburô 15, 17, 18, 57
Okada Toshiki 77, 78
Okamoto Tarô 90, 97–99
114
Onobu Pelican 80
Ôshiro Tatsuhiro 59
Ôtomo Yoshihide 27
Politkowskaya, Anna 21
Rangda 56
Reinelt, Janette G. 77, 104
Saeki Kazumi 16, 17
Sakate Yôji 77–81, 85–89, 102, 105
Sakurai Ami 16
Satô Aiko 25
Satô Yûhei 14
Shibata Motoyuki 29, 31
Shigematsu Kiyoshi 15
Shimazono Susumu 14
Solnit, Rebecca 44
Suga Keijirô 31
Tada Junnosuke 77, 78
Taguchi Randy 8, 45–50
Takahashi Gen’ichirô 13, 15, 30
Takayama Akira 9, 77–79, 83–85,
102, 104, 112
Tawada Yôko 15, 17, 57
Tsuboike Eiko 81, 82
Tsushima Yûko 12, 21
Ueno Chizuko 15, 30
Umehara Takeshi 14, 15, 20, 28
Ushiro Ryûta 78, 91, 96, 97
Wagô Ryôichi 15, 26, 27, 57, 103
Index Index
Yoshimoto Banana 8, 16, 23, 24, Subject index
53–72
Yoshimoto Takaaki 86
Yû Miri 16, 57 AC Japan 12
advertising money 100
aesthetic concepts 79–83, 92–105
agriculture 37, 41
alternative media 99
anger 15, 16, 30, 69
angura 81, 101, 102
anti-nuclear movement 37, 79, 86,
101
Aomori 41
apocalyptic scenario 97
artistic disobedience 77, 102
atomic bomb 59, 71, 90, 98
atomic bomb literature 59
authoritarian society 83, 101
autobiographical self-references 27,
28
autonomy 15, 31
Bali 56
“balm for the soul” 57
betrayal of the Japanese public 89
bibliotherapy 17, 28, 59
Bikini Atoll 98
blogs 39, 57, 78, 100
bubble economy 47, 81
Buddhist paradise 69
butô 101, 104
capitalism 102
catastrophe as a turning point of
narrative 15
“cathartic quality” 94
Chelfitsch 77
115
Chernobyl 37–40, 45–48, 112
Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant 37
children 27, 54, 68–70
Chim↑Pom 77–80, 90–104, 112
China 20, 21, 59
chronicler of Japanese society 85
citizen empowerment 8, 31, 79, 104
cold shutdown 11, 16
collective apathy 40, 42
comforting vision 62
community 68
conflict management 104
conformity enforced by the
media 13, 79
“connection to the deceased
person” 66
conservatism 58
contaminated food 37–42
continuation of existing
structures 30, 99
“counter culture” 82, 102, 104
“counter space” 80
crisis management 12, 87, 95
cultural corrective 22
damaged reactor 9, 11, 18, 91,
96–100
dead plants 91
demonstration(s) 102, 105
“desperate suicides” 117
diaspora 17
disaster 7, 11, 15, 18, 22, 28, 37, 38,
44–47, 58, 69–72, 77–87, 90–99,
102–104
“disaster narratives” 70
discourses of food and eating in a
nuclear age 37–50, 110
116 Index Index 117

“Discover Tomorrow” 9 Fukushima Daiichi 7, 9, 37, 41, 44, international community 19, 20 kotodama 26
discrimination 17, 27 47, 80, 95 International Research Center for Kyôto 14, 37, 63, 65, 66
disintegration of family 54 Futaba 38 Japanese Studies 14
disintegration of social future life in Japan 84
intertextual references 56, 67, 68 “language situation” 12
structures 15, 23
IOC 9 life in a nuclear age 45, 50
disposal of radioactive material 11, genbaku bungaku 59
irritating normality 85 life in the zone 49
87 gender construction 54, 109
Iwate 38, 41 liminal space between life and
“divine punishment” 25, 86 Germany 20, 101
iyashi 8, 53, 55, 56, 64, 71 death 55, 61
dystopian visions 87, 104 ghosts 65, 67, 71
iyashi literature 53 literary explorations 45
Godzilla 98
literary resistance 40, 50
ecocriticism 17, 51, 110 Great East Japan Earthquake 7, 9,
Japan living conditions in Japanese
educational documentary theatre 79 32, 43, 95
brand 95 society 103
electrical power cuts 86 greenpeace magazin 23, 35, 44, 57
isolated from the rest of the lobby agents 31
emancipation from the mass guerilla-like art 90, 97
guinea pig 48 world 28 local patriotism 27
media 100
empowerment of the individual 104 Gunma 41 Japan Nuclear Fuels Conversion “lonely deaths” 15
empty language 44 Company (JCO) 44 loss 8, 12, 24, 46, 55, 61–71, 87, 99
energy policy 19 Hamadôri 28 Japan Playwrights Association 80 Lost Decade 82
environment 8, 41, 65, 91, 110 happiness 67, 71 Japanese consumer society 30
environmental contamination 89 healing 7, 8, 17, 53, 56, 63, 87 democracy 21, 30 mainstream media 79, 99, 100
essays 8, 14–17, 30, 37, 40, 45–50, hell 51, 67 government 11, 12, 18, 24, 41–43, Manrui Toriking Ichiza 80
53, 77, 85–87, 103, 105 hibakusha 59 87, 95, 97 March Was Made of Yarn 16, 31
ethno-romantic imagery 25 high-level waste 87–89 identity 8, 14, 24, 58 marginalized voices 79
evacuation 27, 48 Hiroshima 17, 18, 45, 59, 71, 89, 98 intellectuals 30 marine products 40
excessive consumerism 54 hope 9, 12, 22, 26, 28, 51, 55, 57, 94 literature 7, 29, 53, 54 matters of public interest 105
experience of loss 12, 24, 46, 55, 61, Hurricane Katrina 45 militarism 25 meaning of life 45, 47, 50
66–71 hydrogen bomb 98 national identity 58 media personalities 30
nuclear heritage 17 meltdown 7, 12, 18, 37, 41–46, 59
Facebook 24, 99 Ibaraki 41, 44 soul 23, 24, 58 mercury poisoning 39, 40
faith in the state 23, 24 ikebana 91, 92 system 8, 9, 15, 16 Minamata Disease 39, 40
family 48, 54, 66, 68 image of Japan 11 Japanese hippies 48 Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and
financial crisis 21 industrial development 26 Japanese Studies 7, 14, 102 Fisheries 41, 43
fisheries 37 information policy 11, 19 Japan’s future 9, 31 Ministry of Economy, Trade and
food safety 12, 38–49, 100 inner peace 62 Japan’s involvement in global deve- Industry (METI) 87, 95
food shortages 95 insular self-absorption 21 Miyagi 14, 16, 37, 38, 41
lopements 85
fossil fuels 88, 89, 92 International Association of Theatre
modern values 40, 50
freedom of speech 20 Critics (IATC) 78
Kôenji 87 MoMa PS1 93
Korea 20, 59 Monkey Business 29
118 Index Index 119

MUJIN-TO Production 91, 92 Occupy movement 101 precarity literature 16 social change 30, 103, 104
mujô 24, 25, 58 Okinawa 59, 64, 65, 67 premodern way of life 40 social responsibility 78, 103
myth of safe nuclear energy 89, 102 Okuma 38 protest culture 16, 100, 102 solace 55, 71
Olympic games 9 protest movement 81, 82, 100, 101 Sôma 93, 95
Nagasaki 17, 18, 59, 71, 98 Olympics 2020 9 psycho-hygienic element 22 sôteigai = unforseeability 12
national community 27 Onagawa 38 public concern 38, 39, 41 Soviet Union 86
National Defense Academy 14 opportunity for interaction 105 mind 44, 50 spiritual intellectuals 14
national emergency 13, 20 optimism 23, 56, 57 opinion 99 spirituality 65
isolation 29 “other world” 62 sphere 79 student uprisings 81, 82, 100, 101
mindset 25 supernatural elements 54
mood 13 Pacific War 59 radiation protection suits 95 support 8, 9, 41–50, 57, 81, 95, 96
patriotism 27 PARCO 91 radiation victims 18 suppression of opinions 19
nationalism 13, 28 patriotic tone 24 radioactive contamination 7, 15, 28, symbolic deconstruction of the
nationhood 87 peace movements 100 48, 80 nation 96
natural disaster 46, 58 peaceful use of nuclear energy 18, 20 radioactivity 12, 20, 21, 29, 39, 41, sympathy with Japan 20
nervous disorder 40 P.E.N. Club 19, 20 47, 96
“new normality” 11, 31 places of communication 86 reconstruction nationalism 13 taboo word 12
new self 56 “plastic words” 39 reconstruction propaganda 95 TEPCO 7, 11, 37, 41, 96, 100
New York 29, 94 plutocracy 77 Referendum Project 79, 83–85 theatre companies 82, 86, 103
next world 62, 71 plutonium 89 regenerative powers of nature 59 thought control 13
NGO 100 poems on Twitter 27, 57, 103 repoliticisation of art / theatre / lite- three-fold catastrophe 7, 11, 53–57,
Nippon Foundation 31 political campaign 8 rature 7, 79, 100 60, 71
nonfiction essays 46, 47 issues 7 reports about Fukushima 28 Tôhoku 9–14, 26–28, 58, 80, 86, 92,
nostalgia 54 novel (seiji shôsetsu) 22 responsibility 10, 17–21, 30, 41, 42, 94
nuclear stance 57 78, 87, 103, 104 Tôkaimura 44
age 37, 45, 48–50 polling station 84 restoration 66 TOKIO 41
energy 18, 20, 83–89, 92–102 positive turning point for Japan 10 Rinkôgun 77, 79, 81, 86 Tokyo International Literary
heritage 17 possibilities of language 71 Festival 31
power 11–20, 30, 37–48, 78, 83–88, 96 possibilities of theatre 83 sâdaka 65, 67 toxic elements 39
power plant 11, 19, 20, 37–48, 83, post-Fukushima foodscape 38 safe food 37 trauma 8, 16, 17, 27, 53, 56, 59, 70,
88, 96 post-Fukushima Japan 13 San Francisco 44 104
victims 18 post-Fukushima literature 8, 15, 26, self censorship 13 trauma literature 70
waste 87 29 sense of reality 39 traumatised nation 8, 104
Nuclear Waste Management Organi- post-3/11 reality 45, 46 sex hotline 91, 92 tsunami 7, 18, 29, 37, 46, 57, 78, 86,
zation of Japan (NUMO) 87 postwar artists 97 Shibuya 28, 90, 98 93, 94
PR agencies 31 Shimokitazawa 81 TV 39, 41, 46, 84, 99, 100
precarisation 23 shôgekijô 80–82 Twitter 27, 57, 85, 98, 99, 103
120 Index The four essays of the volume Literature and Art after
“Fukushima“ focus on the question as to what extent the
Ukraine 37 three-fold catastrophy of Fukushima may be considered a
unity in society 43 turning point also for the Japanese literature and art scene,
uranium 44, 89 how thoseForm
In kurzweiliger unprecedented events
zeigt Stefan Bölts,have
dassbeen received so far,
Kirchenre-
and ist,
form mehr whatalspositions
die Kürzungwere
vontaken up by Japanese authors,
Gemeindepfarrstellen
victims 9, 11, 16–18, 48, 59, 77, 95
Vietnam 101 und dietheater
endlosedirectors,
Diskussionandüber
performance artists in their works
Positionspapiere.
vision of paradise 69 and productions following 3/11.
Das Thema geht uns alle an, weil die Kirche zu aller erst
voices of the Japanese citizens 85
voluntary work 93 aus Menschen besteht und wir es sind, die im Zeitalter
voting event 85 gesellschaftlicher Veränderungen unserem Glauben im-
mer wieder neu Gestalt geben. Um so wichtiger ist es da,
wartime society 13
dass auch die uns umgebenden Strukturen klug auf ihre
“we Japanese” 58
wholeness 55, 66
Umwelt reagieren.
writing novels 22 Ein Wegweiser durch das Dickicht der Reformdiskussio-
nen!
Yamagata 41
Yamanashi 41

Za Kôenji 87
Za Suzunari 81 Lisette Gebhardt
Das Netzwerk is professor
Kirchenreform of Japanese
versteht Literature
sich als and Culture
ökumenische
Zengakuren 100 at Goethe University,
Lerngemeinschaft, Frankfurt/Germany.
die mit Tagungen Recently
und Workshops dieshe turned her
Qua-
Zwentendorf Nuclear Power interest
lität von to “Fukushima”
Lernprozessen, and commented on
die interdisziplinäre the Japanese
Kooperation “earthquake
und
Plant 83 das Netzwerk-Denken
literature” as wellin
as kirchlichen Reformbewegungen
on the reactions för-
of Japanese intellectuals
dern und begleiten
towards möchte. Wir
the catastrophe in möchten dazu beitragen, dass
north Japan.
Reformprojekte gemeinsam getragen und wertvolle Impulse
Yuki Masami
und Erfahrungen is professorund
ausgetauscht at Kanazawa
vernetzt University/Japan
werden. where she
teaches environmental literature and English as a Foreign Language.
www.netzwerk-kirchenreform.de
She has been publishing books and articles on American and Japanese
environmental literature with special focuses on topics such as
literary soundscapes, urban nature, and discourses on food and
toxicity.

ISBN 978-3-86893-028-3

[ W W W.EBVERLAG.DE ]