Trespasses

"Trespasses" presents key writings of Misao Miyoshi, the Tokyo-born literary scholar who became one of the most important postwar intellectuals to link culture with politics and a singular critical voice within the academy. For more than four decades, Miyoshi was a voice outside the mainstream, trespassing into new fields, making previously unseen connections, and upending naive assumptions. With an impeccable sense of when a topic or discussion had lost its critical momentum, he moved on to the next question, and then the next after that, taking on matters of literary form, cross-culture relations, globalization, art and architecture, the corporatization of the university, and the threat of ecological disaster. "Trespasses" reveals the tremendous range of Miyoshi's thought and interests, shows how his thinking transformed over time, and highlights his recurring concerns. This volume brings together eleven selections of Miyoshi's previously published writing, a major new essay, a critical introduction to his life and work, and an interview in which Miyoshi reflects on the trajectory of his thought and the institutional history of modern Japan studies. In the new essay, "Literary Elaborations", he provides a masterful overview of the nature of the contemporary university, and he calls for a global environmental protection studies that would radically reconfigure academic disciplines and merge the hard sciences with humanities and the social sciences. In the other, chronologically arranged selections, Miyoshi addresses cross-culture relations between Japan and the United States, English literary studies in Japan, and Japan studies in the U.S., as well as the organization of urban space and the integrity of art and architecture in aggressively marketed-oriented environments. "Trespasses" is an invaluable introduction to the work of a fearless cultural critic.