Published on August 29, 2018
Job titles and other details are as of the time of publication.
(The interview was conducted in Japanese and was thereafter translated into English.)

Exploring through literature the link between the arts and politics

My research field is English literature with a focus on topics such as “Aesthetic ideology in Irish cultural nationalism,” “Language, sexuality, and ideology in James Joyce’s Ulysses,” and “Italian futurism and English modernism.” As a student, I was an avid reader of Joyce and the masters of English literature, and also the literary greats of all the different countries. Fyodor Dostoevsky, Franz Kafka, Albert Camus, and Abe Kobo—each in his own way, these writers expressed their discomfort with the world, and losing myself in their works gave me a great feeling of catharsis. By extension of my reading, I discovered the German critic, Walter Benjamin. I was 19 or 20 years old when I came upon his idea that fascism tends toward the aestheticization of politics and it sparked my interest. Not yet understanding what that meant, I kept it in the back of my mind. Fast-forward to my late twenties, I went to see an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London titled Art & Power, a showcase of works of art and architecture from the 1930s, when Europe was dominated by Nazism, and Russia by Stalinism. The exhibition itself had no special message and gave each viewer the freedom to form his or her own impression. I was incredibly inspired by the show and the link it examined between the arts and politics. It reminded me of Benjamin’s idea and spurred me to explore the same link through literature, laying the groundwork for the research topics I cover today.

“War is beautiful” (Marinetti)—The aestheticization of politics

Let’s take a look at Benjamin’s idea of the aestheticization of politics, or the introduction of aesthetics into political life.

A classic example is futurism, an avant-garde art movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. In 1935, the Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti glorified and lauded the beauty of the Italian colonial war against Ethiopia. The war had unfolded against the backdrop of a failing economy. Italy was in a period of overproduction and underconsumption, markets were lacking, and the problem of unemployment was growing ever more serious. With the outbreak of the Ethiopian War, factory yields were concentrated on the war effort, and the unemployed were sent to the battlefield. That is, war was an economic policy, a quick fix for the multiple problems at hand.

Directly expressing that fact or saying the truth out loud, however, might provoke controversy, and so instead, Marinetti celebrated and glamorized the war by aesthetic judgement. Benjamin described that as the introduction of aesthetics into political life, or the aestheticization of politics, thereby identifying the characteristics of fascism.

From urbanization to the backlash of physical culture, and to fascism

A wave of urbanization swept over Europe from the late 19th to early 20th centuries. Urbanization was seen as causing physical degeneration and provoked a backlash aiming for regeneration, giving rise to a physical culture movement. Healthy, complete men and women with perfect physiques are more likely to produce genetically superior children—so proclaimed the German bodybuilder, Eugen Sandow. He founded a magazine in the United Kingdom titled Physical Culture, featuring exercises for achieving the physiques of Greek sculpture. Sandow even proposed displaying replicas of the Venus de Milo in girls’ school classrooms because he believed those who admired Greek sculpture from childhood would seek to develop similar physiques, and as a result, the race as a whole would veer from degeneration to regeneration.

That belief, shared by eugenicists of the 1910s, was a form of introduction of aesthetics into political life. I believe it was a precursor of the fascist cultural policy of the 1930s.

Joyce’s sensibility in a time when modernist artists supported fascism

Meanwhile, the early 20th century also saw the rise of modernism, an experimental avant-garde art movement in the fields such as literature, architecture, painting, and philosophy. In my main research area of literature, the leading modernist artists of that period were drawn to fascism—that is, with the exception of James Joyce.

The artists of the time observed the situation in Europe and drew on their observations to form their own visions of humanity. Fascism might have appealed to their artistic sensibilities or they might have decided to support the movement early on lest the situation get worse. At any given time period, writers respond to politics and power by nature. And the more serious the writers are about expressing themselves, the more likely they are to be involved in the period-specific situation. For this reason, I will not criticize those artists who defended fascism from today’s perspective.

Still, the big question remains: Why did so many modernist artists support fascism? And why didn’t Joyce? I am forever exploring the influence on either side. That big question is the very source of motivation for my research.

Broadening my horizons through the fascinating writings of critics

To answer the question, it is not enough to study Joyce’s work alone. It’s essential to keep my mind open and look into fields beyond literature such as music, architecture, and philosophy. I must forever continue to expand my horizons. I learned that from the fascinating writings of critics and philosophers.

Benjamin is a favorite, as are Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, and Slavoj Zizek—I have had the wonderful opportunity of translating a number of Zizek’s works. I admire these great thinkers for their broad, deep, and sharp vision, their encyclopedic knowledge, and their strong memory. Discovering them was an incredible benefit because they taught me how to approach and appreciate the arts that are the products of human creation. By going further back and tracing what they read, I kept broadening my horizons and studying more works of literature and other arts from the past. And by doing so, in turn, I also breathed new life into those writings and gave them new energy. A hundred years from now, Plato’s writings will surely continue to be reread and reinterpreted. Being a part of that, for me, is the joy of studying and critiquing literature.

All works of art are calling out to people in the future

As Master’s students in the Graduate School of Language and Society, you will have a limited period of two years to broaden your horizons. That’s two years to research and explore your topic of choice, and present what you have learned in your master’s thesis. For those of you taking on that Herculean task, I dedicate a quote from Benjamin. Be the photographic developers! If all works of literature and art are photographic films, then “only the future has at its disposal developers strong enough to allow the image to come to light in all its details.” That is, works of art are created on the premise that they will be developed in the future. Those works are calling out to you, the future generation, to be their developers. I hope to see many students recognize that call and take on the great challenge of undertaking literary studies.