Maeda remapped the study of modern Japanese literature and culture in the 1970s and 1980s, helping to generate widespread interest in studying mass culture on the one hand and marginalized sectors of modern Japanese society on the other. These essays reveal the broad range of Maeda’s cultural criticism. Among the topics considered are Tokyo; utopias; prisons; visual media technologies including panoramas and film; the popular culture of the Edo, Meiji, and contemporary periods; maps; women’s magazines; and women writers. Integrally related to these discussions are Maeda’s readings of works of Japanese literature including Matsubara Iwagoro’s In Darkest Tokyo, Nagai Kafu’s The Fox, Higuchi Ichiyo’s Growing Up, Kawabata Yasunari’s The Crimson Gang of Asakusa, and Narushima Ryuhoku’s short story “Useless Man.” Illuminating the infinitely rich phenomena of modernity, these essays are full of innovative, unexpected connections between cultural productions and urban life, between the text and the city.

Maeda Ai (1931–1987) was a renowned Japanese literary and cultural critic. He taught at Rikkyo University. His many books include the three-volume The Space of Tokyo 1868-1930 (1986), The World of Higuchi Ichiyo (1978), Meiji as Phantasm (1978), and The Creation of the Modern Reader (1973).
James A. Fujii is Associate Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literature at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of Complicit Fictions: The Subject in the Modern Japanese Prose Narrative.

James A. Fujii is Associate Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literature at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of Complicit Fictions: The Subject in the Modern Japanese Prose Narrative.