Books (edited) by George T. Sipos
This book approaches the concept of tenkō (political conversion) as a response to the global cris... more This book approaches the concept of tenkō (political conversion) as a response to the global crisis of interwar modernity, as opposed to a distinctly Japanese experience in postwar debates.
Tenkō connotes the expressions of ideological conversion performed by members of the Japanese Communist Party, starting in 1933, whereby they renounced Marxism and expressed support for Japan’s imperial expansion on the continent. Although tenkō has a significant presence in Japan’s postwar intellectual and literary histories, this multi-authored volume is one of the first in English-language scholarship to approach the phenomenon. International perspectives from both established and early career scholars show tenkō as inseparable from the global politics of empire, deeply marked by an age of mechanical reproduction, mediatization and the manipulation of language. Chapters draw on a wide range of interdisciplinary methodologies, from political theory and intellectual history to literary studies. In this way, tenkō is explored through new conceptual and analytical frameworks, including questions of gender and the role of affect in politics, implications that render the phenomenon distinctly relevant to the contemporary moment.
Tenkō: Cultures of Political Conversion in Transwar Japan will prove a valuable resource to students and scholars of Japanese and East Asian history, literature and politics.
Journals (Editor/Guest Editor) by George T. Sipos
Annals of West University of Timisoara. Humanities Series, 2022
Romanian Journal of Japanese Studies, 1999
The Romanian Journal of Japanese Studies (RJJS) is an open source, peer-review academic publicati... more The Romanian Journal of Japanese Studies (RJJS) is an open source, peer-review academic publication dedicated to Japanese studies and edited and published in Romania.
Due to financial difficulties, only two volumes were published to date, in 1999 and 2002, as part of the first series of the journal. A second series is in preparation, scheduled to begin publication in 2023.
RJJS was founded and edited by George T. Sipos, and published by the Japanese Language and Literature Section of the Department of Oriental Languages and Literature of the University of Bucharest and the former Societatea Română de Niponologie (Romanian Society of Japanese Studies). The journal was mainly published in English, with contributions accepted in Italian, French, German or Romanian, accompanied by English abstracts. Initially planned as a yearly publication, RJJS faced financial challenges from its inception, and despite the editors’ efforts to keep it alive, the journal was forced to cease publication after Volume II.
The members of the editorial board for the first series of the journal were:
Founder & Editor: George T. Sipos, PhD (West University of Timisoara/Washington University in Saint Louis)
Stanca Scholz-Cionca, PhD (University of Trier)
Iulia Waniek, PhD (Dimitrie Cantemir Christian University)
To access the article archive of the first series of the journal, visit: http://rjjs.wordpress.com/
Journal Articles by George T. Sipos
Analele Universitatii din Timisoara. Seria Stiinte Filologice, 2022
Theory in Action, 2022
The present article reexamines the work of Japanese modern writer
Dazai Osamu (1909-1948)2
in an... more The present article reexamines the work of Japanese modern writer
Dazai Osamu (1909-1948)2
in an attempt to revisit its conventional
placement within the tradition of the modern Japanese literary
category of the shishōsetsu (approximately, I-novel). By briefly
exploring the very elements and definitions of the category itself, as
well as Dazai’s literary evolution, the article endeavors to understand
what led to the works of his final years life and to the change in
narrative techniques that makes those works Dazai’s best writings and
some of the most accomplished in modern Japanese literature.
Annals of West University of Timisoara (Humanities Series), Dec 2021
The translation and reception of Japanese literature in Romania has followed the vicissitudes of ... more The translation and reception of Japanese literature in Romania has followed the vicissitudes of the country's coming into modernity in the 19th century and slide into fascism and communism throughout the 20th century, as well as the subsequent ups and downs of the relationship with Japan. This research offers a brief overview of that sinuous path. It then focuses on the pre-and post-1990 reception of the works of Yukio Mishima (1925-1970, one of the iconic figures of Japan's postwar literature and exemplary for his continued trials and tribulations with modernity. By making use of scholarly and journalistic sources, the current incipient research provides several examples of the translation and reception of Mishima's works in Romania, as well as the extent to which his presence in this literary space has managed to permeate the psyche of Romanian scholars, literary critics and readers alike.
Romanian Journal of English Studies, 2021
This article explores the source and the meaning of the eleven quatrains quoted by modern Japanes... more This article explores the source and the meaning of the eleven quatrains quoted by modern Japanese writer Dazai Osamu (1909-1948) in his last complete novel, Ningen shikkaku (No Longer Human, 1948). Although dubbed as “rubaiyat”, which would indicate that they are translations from the work of classical Persian poet and mathematician Omar Khayyam (1048-1131), the poems do not seem to match any of the known English translations from his work. This article explores the origin of the Japanese quatrains in Dazai’s novel, as well as their possible relevance for his literary work overall.
This dissertation explores the controversial topic of tenkō (“ideological conversion”) of mid-193... more This dissertation explores the controversial topic of tenkō (“ideological conversion”) of mid-1930s Japan, with focus on the tenkō literature, a corpus of literary narratives produced by those who underwent conversion or expressed themselves concretely in response to the pressures towards it. Caused by the state’s massive arrests, imprisonment, and other repressive measures, tenkō led not only to the Japanese Communist Party members’ mass defections from the party, but also to an irrevocable change within Japan’s modern intellectual history. With a larger view to addressing the often vexed relationship between state authorities and artists and intellectuals, this study conducts a historical and critical examination of the conditions and reception of tenkō, as well as of the characteristics of tenkō literature, and offers close readings of Nakano Shigeharu’s “Mura no ie” (House in the Village, 1934) and Sata Ineko’s Kurenai (Crimson, 1936).
The first half of the dissertation shows how the controversial category of tenkō and its literature has been tackled, gesturing to redefine the methodological terms for their study. It first historically maps out the ideological transformations of Japan’s Marxist movement from its first manifestations at the end of the 19th century until June 1933, when two key Japanese Communist Party leaders, Sano Manabu and Nabeyama Sadachika, publicly declared their tenkō. Through a critical survey of the large body of existing Japanese and English language studies dealing with the tenkō phenomenon, the first part shows the ways in which ideological understanding of tenkō has affected the reading and interpretation of the tenkō literature. The latter half of the dissertation is devoted to a close reading of the texts by Nakano and Sata. In order to carve out some new directions for the understanding of both chosen and the tenkō narratives at large, my analysis pays attention to the hitherto unnoticed or neglected aspects of “Mura no ie” and Kurenai. Thickly informed by the extensive grasp of the contexts of tenkō, my intensive re-reading of two of the most representative examples of Japanese tenkō literature points to the rich interpretative possibilities residing in those narratives of prewar Japan.
The resonances and lessons from Japan’s political, intellectual, and literary struggles with the external pressures towards ideological conversion, the dissertation ultimately argues, are far from exhausted by previous scholarship; Japanese tenkō literature holds a rich heuristic relevance for contemporary social and political affairs, awaiting new, comparative or global perspectives beyond the previous pale of exclusively Japanese contexts.
Studia Universitatis Babes Bolyai: Philologia 3/2010, pp. 79-96, 2010
With the beginning of the Pacific War in 1941, Japan seemed to be in full charge of its conquests... more With the beginning of the Pacific War in 1941, Japan seemed to be in full charge of its conquests and older colonies, Taiwan, Manchuria and Korea. Used as the premise for a comparison between writings of Korean and Japanese female writers, Ch’oe Chŏnghŭi`s Nogikushō (The Wild Chrysanthemum) is the main text analyzed in this article. The authors her work is compared with on the Japanese side are Sata Ineko, Hayashi Fumiko and Yoshiya Nobuko. The question the current article is trying to answer is why there are no good texts for comparison with Ch`oe`s work and offer a couple of hypotheses.
日本文学文集/Nihon Bungaku bunshū, Jun 2005
シポス・ジョージ 宮本百合子とその「転向」 １８９９年東京の知識人の家族に生まれた宮本百合子は彼女が属していた 階級から判断すればプロレタリア文学運動に参加していたとは想像しにくいかも しれませ... more シポス・ジョージ 宮本百合子とその「転向」 １８９９年東京の知識人の家族に生まれた宮本百合子は彼女が属していた 階級から判断すればプロレタリア文学運動に参加していたとは想像しにくいかも しれません。勿論、プロレタリア文学運動は世界の中でどこでも労働階級から出 た作家たちばかりだというわけではありませんが、宮本のケースは特に珍しいと 言えます。宮本の文学活動をよく考察すれば二つの時代に分けられることが分か ります。その二つは１９２６年までのソビエト・ロシアに行く前の時代(いわゆ るプロレタリア文学者になる前)、もう一つは１９３０年の後のプロレタリア文 学者になった後の時代です。この論文では政治活動にあまり関心がなかった宮本 百合子がどうして共産主義者の作家になったかという過程を考察しようと思いま す。 宮本百合子はソ連への滞在をきっかけに１９３１年に秘密的に共産党員に なりましたが表向きにはプロレタリア文学運動のメンバーとして活躍しました。 百合子の夫の宮本顕示の『宮本百合子の世界』 1 という本によると彼女の ソビエト時代の変化の理由は三つあったそうです。一番目はソビエト・ロシアに おいて女性の生活と社会での役割が非常に尊重されていたことで、二番目は宮本 に精神的に非常に影響があった１９２８年の弟の自殺と日本社会は将来がないと 1 宮本賢治、『宮本百合子の世界』、新日本出版社、東京、１９６３
Virginia Review of Asian Studies, Nov 2002
Romanian Journal of Japanese Studies, 2002
Continent 1/1999, pp. 81-85, 1999
Contrapunct 1-2/1998, pp. 21-22, Jan 1998
Contrapunct 1-2/1998, pp. 20-21, Jan 1998
Book Chapters by George T. Sipos
Dazai Osamu, Decădere umană, 2024
Afterword to the Dazai Osamu volume of translations, Decădere umană ( Bucharest: Humanitas Fictio... more Afterword to the Dazai Osamu volume of translations, Decădere umană ( Bucharest: Humanitas Fiction, 2024), p. 339-349.
Liviu Rebreanu, Ciuleandra (Cadmus Press), 2021
Introduction to the English translation of Romanian modernist writer Liviu Rebreanu (1885-1944)'s... more Introduction to the English translation of Romanian modernist writer Liviu Rebreanu (1885-1944)'s 1927 psychological thriller Ciuleandra.
Tenkō: Cultures of Political Conversion in Inter-war Japan, 2021
This chapter focuses on the category of tenkō bungaku (tenkō literature), and identifies its unde... more This chapter focuses on the category of tenkō bungaku (tenkō literature), and identifies its underlying tropes and themes. Sipos offers a fresh look at tenkō literature and attempts a definition and classification of the literary works typically associated with tenkō based on the writers’ political experience and the subject of their narratives. While it is customary for tenkō literature works to be classified on whether the authors had truly committed to the ideological “conversion” or had done so declaratively to be freed from prison, Sipos takes a different approach. Switching the focus from the authors to the content and style of the literary pieces, he identifies two major thematic/narrative style groups within the tenkō literature category: those dealing with the topic of family and those utilizing the shishōsetsu (I-novel) literary convention, and focuses his attention on critical analyses of both groups.
Mishima monogatari: Un samurai delle arti, 2020
Translations and Reception of Mishima Yukio in Romania.
In Teresa Ciapparoni La Roca (ed.), Mishi... more Translations and Reception of Mishima Yukio in Romania.
In Teresa Ciapparoni La Roca (ed.), Mishima monogatari: Un samurai delle arti, Turin: Edizioni Lindau, 2020. 205-214.
ISBN: 978-88-3353-466-4
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Books (edited) by George T. Sipos
Tenkō connotes the expressions of ideological conversion performed by members of the Japanese Communist Party, starting in 1933, whereby they renounced Marxism and expressed support for Japan’s imperial expansion on the continent. Although tenkō has a significant presence in Japan’s postwar intellectual and literary histories, this multi-authored volume is one of the first in English-language scholarship to approach the phenomenon. International perspectives from both established and early career scholars show tenkō as inseparable from the global politics of empire, deeply marked by an age of mechanical reproduction, mediatization and the manipulation of language. Chapters draw on a wide range of interdisciplinary methodologies, from political theory and intellectual history to literary studies. In this way, tenkō is explored through new conceptual and analytical frameworks, including questions of gender and the role of affect in politics, implications that render the phenomenon distinctly relevant to the contemporary moment.
Tenkō: Cultures of Political Conversion in Transwar Japan will prove a valuable resource to students and scholars of Japanese and East Asian history, literature and politics.
Journals (Editor/Guest Editor) by George T. Sipos
https://analefilologie.uvt.ro/special-issue-modern-japan-2/?lang=en
Due to financial difficulties, only two volumes were published to date, in 1999 and 2002, as part of the first series of the journal. A second series is in preparation, scheduled to begin publication in 2023.
RJJS was founded and edited by George T. Sipos, and published by the Japanese Language and Literature Section of the Department of Oriental Languages and Literature of the University of Bucharest and the former Societatea Română de Niponologie (Romanian Society of Japanese Studies). The journal was mainly published in English, with contributions accepted in Italian, French, German or Romanian, accompanied by English abstracts. Initially planned as a yearly publication, RJJS faced financial challenges from its inception, and despite the editors’ efforts to keep it alive, the journal was forced to cease publication after Volume II.
The members of the editorial board for the first series of the journal were:
Founder & Editor: George T. Sipos, PhD (West University of Timisoara/Washington University in Saint Louis)
Stanca Scholz-Cionca, PhD (University of Trier)
Iulia Waniek, PhD (Dimitrie Cantemir Christian University)
To access the article archive of the first series of the journal, visit: http://rjjs.wordpress.com/
Journal Articles by George T. Sipos
Dazai Osamu (1909-1948)2
in an attempt to revisit its conventional
placement within the tradition of the modern Japanese literary
category of the shishōsetsu (approximately, I-novel). By briefly
exploring the very elements and definitions of the category itself, as
well as Dazai’s literary evolution, the article endeavors to understand
what led to the works of his final years life and to the change in
narrative techniques that makes those works Dazai’s best writings and
some of the most accomplished in modern Japanese literature.
The first half of the dissertation shows how the controversial category of tenkō and its literature has been tackled, gesturing to redefine the methodological terms for their study. It first historically maps out the ideological transformations of Japan’s Marxist movement from its first manifestations at the end of the 19th century until June 1933, when two key Japanese Communist Party leaders, Sano Manabu and Nabeyama Sadachika, publicly declared their tenkō. Through a critical survey of the large body of existing Japanese and English language studies dealing with the tenkō phenomenon, the first part shows the ways in which ideological understanding of tenkō has affected the reading and interpretation of the tenkō literature. The latter half of the dissertation is devoted to a close reading of the texts by Nakano and Sata. In order to carve out some new directions for the understanding of both chosen and the tenkō narratives at large, my analysis pays attention to the hitherto unnoticed or neglected aspects of “Mura no ie” and Kurenai. Thickly informed by the extensive grasp of the contexts of tenkō, my intensive re-reading of two of the most representative examples of Japanese tenkō literature points to the rich interpretative possibilities residing in those narratives of prewar Japan.
The resonances and lessons from Japan’s political, intellectual, and literary struggles with the external pressures towards ideological conversion, the dissertation ultimately argues, are far from exhausted by previous scholarship; Japanese tenkō literature holds a rich heuristic relevance for contemporary social and political affairs, awaiting new, comparative or global perspectives beyond the previous pale of exclusively Japanese contexts.
Book Chapters by George T. Sipos
In Teresa Ciapparoni La Roca (ed.), Mishima monogatari: Un samurai delle arti, Turin: Edizioni Lindau, 2020. 205-214.
ISBN: 978-88-3353-466-4
Tenkō connotes the expressions of ideological conversion performed by members of the Japanese Communist Party, starting in 1933, whereby they renounced Marxism and expressed support for Japan’s imperial expansion on the continent. Although tenkō has a significant presence in Japan’s postwar intellectual and literary histories, this multi-authored volume is one of the first in English-language scholarship to approach the phenomenon. International perspectives from both established and early career scholars show tenkō as inseparable from the global politics of empire, deeply marked by an age of mechanical reproduction, mediatization and the manipulation of language. Chapters draw on a wide range of interdisciplinary methodologies, from political theory and intellectual history to literary studies. In this way, tenkō is explored through new conceptual and analytical frameworks, including questions of gender and the role of affect in politics, implications that render the phenomenon distinctly relevant to the contemporary moment.
Tenkō: Cultures of Political Conversion in Transwar Japan will prove a valuable resource to students and scholars of Japanese and East Asian history, literature and politics.
https://analefilologie.uvt.ro/special-issue-modern-japan-2/?lang=en
Due to financial difficulties, only two volumes were published to date, in 1999 and 2002, as part of the first series of the journal. A second series is in preparation, scheduled to begin publication in 2023.
RJJS was founded and edited by George T. Sipos, and published by the Japanese Language and Literature Section of the Department of Oriental Languages and Literature of the University of Bucharest and the former Societatea Română de Niponologie (Romanian Society of Japanese Studies). The journal was mainly published in English, with contributions accepted in Italian, French, German or Romanian, accompanied by English abstracts. Initially planned as a yearly publication, RJJS faced financial challenges from its inception, and despite the editors’ efforts to keep it alive, the journal was forced to cease publication after Volume II.
The members of the editorial board for the first series of the journal were:
Founder & Editor: George T. Sipos, PhD (West University of Timisoara/Washington University in Saint Louis)
Stanca Scholz-Cionca, PhD (University of Trier)
Iulia Waniek, PhD (Dimitrie Cantemir Christian University)
To access the article archive of the first series of the journal, visit: http://rjjs.wordpress.com/
Dazai Osamu (1909-1948)2
in an attempt to revisit its conventional
placement within the tradition of the modern Japanese literary
category of the shishōsetsu (approximately, I-novel). By briefly
exploring the very elements and definitions of the category itself, as
well as Dazai’s literary evolution, the article endeavors to understand
what led to the works of his final years life and to the change in
narrative techniques that makes those works Dazai’s best writings and
some of the most accomplished in modern Japanese literature.
The first half of the dissertation shows how the controversial category of tenkō and its literature has been tackled, gesturing to redefine the methodological terms for their study. It first historically maps out the ideological transformations of Japan’s Marxist movement from its first manifestations at the end of the 19th century until June 1933, when two key Japanese Communist Party leaders, Sano Manabu and Nabeyama Sadachika, publicly declared their tenkō. Through a critical survey of the large body of existing Japanese and English language studies dealing with the tenkō phenomenon, the first part shows the ways in which ideological understanding of tenkō has affected the reading and interpretation of the tenkō literature. The latter half of the dissertation is devoted to a close reading of the texts by Nakano and Sata. In order to carve out some new directions for the understanding of both chosen and the tenkō narratives at large, my analysis pays attention to the hitherto unnoticed or neglected aspects of “Mura no ie” and Kurenai. Thickly informed by the extensive grasp of the contexts of tenkō, my intensive re-reading of two of the most representative examples of Japanese tenkō literature points to the rich interpretative possibilities residing in those narratives of prewar Japan.
The resonances and lessons from Japan’s political, intellectual, and literary struggles with the external pressures towards ideological conversion, the dissertation ultimately argues, are far from exhausted by previous scholarship; Japanese tenkō literature holds a rich heuristic relevance for contemporary social and political affairs, awaiting new, comparative or global perspectives beyond the previous pale of exclusively Japanese contexts.
In Teresa Ciapparoni La Roca (ed.), Mishima monogatari: Un samurai delle arti, Turin: Edizioni Lindau, 2020. 205-214.
ISBN: 978-88-3353-466-4
Contributions of new records are always welcome.
This paper is a close reading of the short story "House in the Village," and is focused on the possibility that the author may have used the literary conventions of shishōsetsu (Japan's autobiographical novel) in an attempt to communicate with his readership and convey to them his determination to continue his political fight despite his public tenkō the year before.