Deconstructing Nationality (Paperback or Softback)

How can a post-national Japanese Studies be defined? How might the postwar myth of a monoethnic Japan be historicized? Can new forms of nationalism be effectively criticized by evoking a spirit of nationalist democracy? This book contains a series of groundbreaking essays by major Japanese and American scholars seeking to locate "Japan" beyond the geographical and ideological boundaries established post-1945 and under the Cold War. Included are essays on such iconic cultural figures as Maruyama Masao and Takamura Kōtarō; on the impact of colonialism on prewar theories of race, language, and multi-culturalism; on gender and nationalism; on the critique of culturalist notions of the "native speaker" and "mother tongue," and on Asian nationalisms in the era of globalization.

Naoki Sakai is professor of Japanese thought and comparative literature at Cornell University. His many publications in English and Japanese include, most recently, Translation and Subjectivity: On the Subject of Japan and Culturalism (1996), Shizan sareru Nihongo-Nihonjin (Stillbirth of the Japanese), 1996 and Specters of the West, a special issue of Traces: A Multilingual Journal of Cultural Theory and Translation (2001).

Brett de Bary is professor of Asian studies and comparative literature at Cornell University. She has published essays and translations on postwar Japanese literature, feminism, and critical theory, including editing "Gender and Imperialism" (U.S. -Japan Women's Journal, 1997). Recently, she has coedited with Meaghan Morris the Traces special issue "'Race' Panic and the Memory of Migration" (2002).

Toshio Iyotani is professor of international economics and Sociology at Hitotsubashi University. He is internationally known for his work on globalization, labor, and migration. His many publications include the edited collection Migrant Workers (Gaikokujin rôdôsharon, 1992), The Changing Global City (Henbô suru sekai toshi, 1993), and What is Globalization (Gurôbarizeeshion to wa nanika, 2002).