In the coming months, you can hear how literature leads to new ways of feeling and new ways of conceiving the self. We launch the first episode right before Christmas with a conversation with Reiko Abe Auestad, Professor of Japanese studies at the Univerisity of Oslo, speaking about emotions and affect in Japanese literature.
Does one feel differently in Japanese novels? When Western novels came to Japan, they brought with them new ways for telling about the self and new models of feeling. Reiko Abe Auestad talks to Karin Kukkonen about this culture clash of emotions and affect.
Listen to "Emotions and Affect in Japanese Literature":
The reading recommendation from Reiko Abe Auestad:
- Natsume Soseki, Kokoro (trans. Ika Kaminka). Oslo: Solum Bokvennen, 2004.
- Natsume Soseki, The Three-Cornered World (trans. Alan Turney). London: Peter Owen Publishers, 2011.
- Shikibu Murasaki, The Tale of Genji (trans. Dennis Washburn). New York: Norton, 2015.
- Kaori Ekuni, Twinkle, Twinkle (trans. Emi Shimokawa). New York: Vertical Inc., 2003
- Ryunosuke Akutagawa, "In a Bamboo Grove," in Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories(trans. Jay Rubin). London: Penguin Books Ltd, 2009.
- Haruki Murakami, Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (trans. Jay Rubin). SD Books, 2012.
- Kawakami Mieko, Pupper og Egg (trans. Magne Tørring). Oslo: Solum Bokvennen, 2013.
Auestad's article "The Affect that Disorients Kokoro" (2019) can be found in volume 29 of Review of Japanese Culture and Society (University of Hawai'i Press).