Table Of ContentEDITED BY CHRISTOPHE THOUNY & MITSUHIRO YOSHIMOTO
Planetary Atmospheres
and Urban Society
After Fukushima
Planetary Atmospheres and Urban Society
After Fukushima
Christophe Thouny • Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto
Editors
Planetary
Atmospheres and
Urban Society After
Fukushima
Editors
Christophe Thouny Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto
The University of Tokyo Waseda University
Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
ISBN 978-981-10-2006-3 ISBN 978-981-10-2007-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-2007-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016958111
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to
the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.
Cover image: © zixia / Alamy Stock Photo
Printed on acid-free paper
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature
The registered company address is Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #22-06/08 Gateway East, Singapore
189721, Singapore
A
cknowledgments
This book would not have been possible without the support of our
colleagues and friends who attended the “Fukushima Japan” and
“Planetary Love” workshops organized at the University of Tokyo from
2012 to 2015 and the lively and convivial gatherings at Sawayaka where
we continued our discussions and prepared for further meetings. In par-
ticular, we thank Reiko Abe Auestad, Veruska Cantelli, Jillian Healy, Saeko
Kimura, Christine Marran, Anne McKnight, Sharity Nelson, Flavio Rizzo,
Marc Steinberg, Shoko Tanaka, and Max Ward. Special thanks to our edi-
tor Christopher Lehrich who did an admirable job preparing the manu-
script. And to Jean-Paul Thouny for the cartography. We are also grateful
for the generous financial assistance provided by Waseda University for the
publication of this book.
v
c
ontents
1 Planetary Atmospheres of Fukushima: Introduction 1
Christophe Thouny
Part 1 Planetary Thinking After Fukushima 19
2 “Dying Wisdom” and “Living Madness”:
A Comparative Literature of the Errant Star 21
Satoshi Ukai, translated by Philip Kaffen
3 Nuclear Disaster and Bubbles 29
Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto
4 How Can I Love My Radioactive Tuna?
Planetary Love in Shōno Yoriko 51
Christophe Thouny
Part 2 Urban Life After Fukushima 71
5 Brave New Sanriku: Recovering from 3.11 73
Ramona Bajema
vii
viii CONTENTS
6 From Atomic Fission to Splitting Areas of Expertise:
When Politics Prevails Over Scientific Proof 95
Cécile Asanuma-Brice
7 Reconstruction of Marginality: The Tokyo Bay Area
in the Great East Japan Earthquake 113
Tadahito Yamamoto
Part 3 Literature, Cinema and Love in Fukushima Japan 129
8 Ecosophy and Planetary Writing: On Chernobyl II 131
Toshiya Ueno
9 In Time for the War: 3/11 After Cinema 169
Philip Kaffen
10 The Gesture from Fukushima Daiichi:
The Voice in Furukawa Hideo 195
Doug Slaymaker
11 Conclusion: Capitalism and Atmosphere 207
Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto
Index 211
l c
ist of ontributors
Cécile Asanuma-Brice an urban sociologist, is an Associate Researcher at
Clersé–University of Lille 1 and at the research center of the Maison
Franco-Japonaise in Tokyo. A permanent resident of Japan since 2001,
she is the author of numerous journal and newspaper articles on the han-
dling of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, including “De la vulnérabilité à la
résilience, réflexions sur la protection en cas de désastre extrême: Le cas de
la gestion des conséquences de l’explosion d’une centrale nucléaire à
Fukushima” (forthcoming) and “Les politiques publiques du logement
face à la catastrophe du 11 mars” (2012).
Ramona Bajema is now completing a book project, Art Across Borders:
Japanese Artists in the United States before World War II, which traces five
Japanese artists active in the establishment of American modernist art.
Following the 2011 triple disasters in Japan, Ramona worked as a Country
Representative in Japan for the humanitarian aid organization, AmeriCares.
Based in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture between 2011 and 2015, Ramona
oversaw the development of health-oriented projects that helped survivors
from Fukushima, Miyagi, and Iwate Prefectures. Her next book project
will be a memoir based on her experiences in post-disaster Tōhoku.
Philip Kaffen is Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow in the departments of
Comparative Literature and East Asian Studies at New York University.
His work analyzes film and media aesthetics, primarily through its intersec-
tions with histories and technologies of war. He has published articles on
documentary film, cinema and urban space, cinephilia and love, and phi-
losophies of media in Japan. His current book project, Embedded Optics:
ix
x LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Imaging Violence/Framing Security in Japanese Media, examines the role
of optical media in waging war and maintaining security, as well as its
capacity to generate forms of responsibility beyond sovereignty.
Doug Slaymaker is Professor of Japanese at the University of Kentucky.
His research focuses on literature and art of the twentieth century, with
particular interest in Japanese writers and artists traveling to France; other
projects include the literature of post-3.11 Japan and of the environment.
His research has been funded by the Fulbright Program, the Social Science
Research Council, NEH, the Library of Congress Kluge Center, and other
agencies. He is most recently the translator of Furukawa Hideo’s Horses,
Horses, in the End the Light Remains Pure (2016).
Christophe Thouny is Project Assistant Professor at the University of
Tokyo. His field of interest covers East Asian media and urban culture,
Japanese literature, ecocriticism, and critical theory. He is currently work-
ing on a book project entitled Tokyo Atmospheres: Environmentalism and
the Neoliberal City in Japanese Subcultures in which he analyzes contem-
porary Japanese subculture in terms of present concerns for the environ-
ment in the neoliberal age. He is also working on a second research project
on cartographic practices of urban spaces in Meiji and Taishō, Tokyo.
Toshiya Ueno is a Professor of Cultural Studies, Media Theory, and
History of Social Thought in the Department of Expressive Cultures and
Transcultural Studies at Wakō University in Tokyo. Professor Ueno is well
known as the author of a number of major books, including Red Metal
Suits: Anime as War Zone (1998), Urban Tribal Studies: A Sociology of
Party Club Culture (2005), and more recently Hoodlums of Thought:
Another Intellectual History of the 1950s (2015).
Satoshi Ukai is Professor of French Literature and Postcolonial Studies
at Hitotsubashi University. His publications in English include The Future
of an Affect: About the Historicity of Shame and The Road to Hell is Paved
with Good Intentions: For ‘a Critique of Terrorism’ to Come (2005). He
recently published in Japanese a collection of essays on Jacques Derrida
entitled The Tomb of Jacquie Derrida (2014) and a translation of Jacques
Derrida’s book, The Animal That Therefore I Am (2014).
Tadahito Yamamoto is Senior Researcher in the Center of the Tokyo
Raids and War Damage at Tokyo, Japan. His work focuses on the relation-
ship among disaster and urban space from sociological viewpoint, including
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS xi
research on the Tokyo Air Raids during WWII and the Great East Japan
Earthquake in 2011. He is a chief editor of an online journal, Disaster,
Infrastructure and Society: Learning from the 2011 Earthquake in Japan,
published on the repository of Hitotsubashi University.
Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto is Professor of Media Studies and Visual Culture
at Waseda University in Tokyo. He is the author of Kurosawa: Film Studies
and Japanese Cinema (Duke University Press, 2000), Empire of Images
and the End of Cinema (Tokyo: Ibunsha, 2007), and Spectacle of Conspiracy
(Tokyo: Ibunsha, 2012). He co-authored with Masao Miyoshi Site of
Resistance (Kyoto: Rakuhoku Shuppan, 2007) and also co-edited
Television, Japan, and Globalization (Center for Japanese Studies,
University of Michigan, 2010) with Eva Tsai and Jung-bong Choi.
