This week: how did a spate of right wing violence in the early years of the 1960s help to fundamentally reshape public discourse around the emperor (and thus around politics and history more generally) up to the present day? And what does all of this have to do with one of the most bizarre short stories that has ever been published?
Sources
Kapur, Nick. Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise After Anpo
Treat, John Whittier. “Beheaded Emperors and the Absent Figure in Contemporary Japanese Literature.” PMLA 106, No 1 (January, 1994).
A New York Times obituary for Akao Bin, the right-wing politician whose ideas radicalized many of the assassins of the 1960s.
Images
Wow, talk about relevant…
I literally listened to this the night before the Abe assassination.