Scripting Suicide in Japan

Japan is a nation saddled with centuries of accumulated stereotypes and loaded assumptions about suicide. Many pronouncements have been made about those who have died by their own hand, without careful attention to the words of the dead themselves. Drawing upon far-ranging creations by famous twenti...

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Váldodahkki: Cather, Kirsten
Materiálatiipa: Online
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Almmustuhtton: University of California Press 2024
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Liŋkkat:https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/94136
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author Cather, Kirsten
author_browse Cather, Kirsten
author_facet Cather, Kirsten
author_sort Cather, Kirsten
collection Directory of Open Access Books
description Japan is a nation saddled with centuries of accumulated stereotypes and loaded assumptions about suicide. Many pronouncements have been made about those who have died by their own hand, without careful attention to the words of the dead themselves. Drawing upon far-ranging creations by famous twentieth- and twenty-first-century Japanese writers and little-known amateurs alike, Kirsten Cather interrogates how suicide is scripted and to what end. Entering the orbit of suicidal writers and readers with care, she shows that through close contextualized readings these works can reveal fundamental beliefs about suicide and, just as crucially, about acts of writing. These are not scripts set in stone but graven images and words nonetheless that serve to mourn the dead, straddling two impulses: to put the dead to rest and to keep them alive forever. These words reach out to us to initiate a dialogue with the dead, one that can reveal why it matters to write into and from the void. “Equal parts literary analysis and social psychology, this subtle and profound study engages with a wide range of Japanese places and people to demonstrate the insoluble entanglement of suicide with the practice of writing.” — Jordan Sand, author of Tokyo Vernacular: Common Spaces, Local Histories, Found Objects “In this stunning book, Kirsten Cather questions the relationship between the acts of suicide and writing, and why and for whom such ‘autothanatography’ trends as so popular in Japan. Scripting Suicide in Japan is masterful in its attention, as hauntingly beautiful as it is analytically profound.” — Anne Allison, author of Precarious Japan “This meticulously researched monograph presents a radical rethinking of the very limits of literature itself, showing us what it might mean to ethically engage with ambivalence, silence, and the ultimate unknown of death. It is a tour de force.” — Christina Yi, author of Colonizing Language: Cultural Production and Language Politics in Modern Japan and Korea
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spelling doab-20.500.12854ir-1473922024-11-01T04:01:00Z Scripting Suicide in Japan Cather, Kirsten Suicide; literature; Japan thema EDItEUR::V Health, Relationships and Personal development::VF Family and health::VFJ Coping with / advice about personal, social and health topics::VFJX Coping with / advice about death and bereavement::VFJX1 Coping with / advice about suicidal thoughts and suicide of others thema EDItEUR::1 Place qualifiers::1F Asia::1FP East Asia, Far East::1FPJ Japan Japan is a nation saddled with centuries of accumulated stereotypes and loaded assumptions about suicide. Many pronouncements have been made about those who have died by their own hand, without careful attention to the words of the dead themselves. Drawing upon far-ranging creations by famous twentieth- and twenty-first-century Japanese writers and little-known amateurs alike, Kirsten Cather interrogates how suicide is scripted and to what end. Entering the orbit of suicidal writers and readers with care, she shows that through close contextualized readings these works can reveal fundamental beliefs about suicide and, just as crucially, about acts of writing. These are not scripts set in stone but graven images and words nonetheless that serve to mourn the dead, straddling two impulses: to put the dead to rest and to keep them alive forever. These words reach out to us to initiate a dialogue with the dead, one that can reveal why it matters to write into and from the void. “Equal parts literary analysis and social psychology, this subtle and profound study engages with a wide range of Japanese places and people to demonstrate the insoluble entanglement of suicide with the practice of writing.” — Jordan Sand, author of Tokyo Vernacular: Common Spaces, Local Histories, Found Objects “In this stunning book, Kirsten Cather questions the relationship between the acts of suicide and writing, and why and for whom such ‘autothanatography’ trends as so popular in Japan. Scripting Suicide in Japan is masterful in its attention, as hauntingly beautiful as it is analytically profound.” — Anne Allison, author of Precarious Japan “This meticulously researched monograph presents a radical rethinking of the very limits of literature itself, showing us what it might mean to ethically engage with ambivalence, silence, and the ultimate unknown of death. It is a tour de force.” — Christina Yi, author of Colonizing Language: Cultural Production and Language Politics in Modern Japan and Korea 2024-11-01T04:00:56Z 2024-11-01T04:00:56Z 2024-10-31T13:35:20Z 2024 book https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/94136 9780520400269 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/147392 eng open access image/jpeg Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/94136/1/scripting-suicide-in-japan.pdf University of California Press 10.1525/luminos.203 10.1525/luminos.203 19856893-4bf2-4e3e-9137-c7692d64e4c1 9780520400269 352 Oakland open access
spellingShingle Suicide; literature; Japan
thema EDItEUR::V Health, Relationships and Personal development::VF Family and health::VFJ Coping with / advice about personal, social and health topics::VFJX Coping with / advice about death and bereavement::VFJX1 Coping with / advice about suicidal thoughts and suicide of others
thema EDItEUR::1 Place qualifiers::1F Asia::1FP East Asia, Far East::1FPJ Japan
Cather, Kirsten
Scripting Suicide in Japan
title Scripting Suicide in Japan
title_full Scripting Suicide in Japan
title_fullStr Scripting Suicide in Japan
title_full_unstemmed Scripting Suicide in Japan
title_short Scripting Suicide in Japan
title_sort scripting suicide in japan
topic Suicide; literature; Japan
thema EDItEUR::V Health, Relationships and Personal development::VF Family and health::VFJ Coping with / advice about personal, social and health topics::VFJX Coping with / advice about death and bereavement::VFJX1 Coping with / advice about suicidal thoughts and suicide of others
thema EDItEUR::1 Place qualifiers::1F Asia::1FP East Asia, Far East::1FPJ Japan
topic_facet Suicide; literature; Japan
thema EDItEUR::V Health, Relationships and Personal development::VF Family and health::VFJ Coping with / advice about personal, social and health topics::VFJX Coping with / advice about death and bereavement::VFJX1 Coping with / advice about suicidal thoughts and suicide of others
thema EDItEUR::1 Place qualifiers::1F Asia::1FP East Asia, Far East::1FPJ Japan
url https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/94136
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