| This dissertation focuses on the novels of Shimazaki Toson (1872-1943), one of modern Japan's most celebrated authors, as well as on works by three American writers: Upton Sinclair, Willa Cather, and John Dos Passos. It examines how these texts participate in the dissemination of ideological constructs that produce images of a unified national community. The methodology used derives from a critical engagement with the linguistic theories of Mikhail Bakhtin, in particular his notion of the speech genre.;The first chapter outlines Toson's career and introduces the major theoretical questions addressed in the dissertation: nationalism and ideology. It also discusses the rationale for examining Japanese and American texts within a single framework. Chapter Two, "Embodying the Nation," compares the description of human bodies in Hakai (Broken Commandment, 1906) and Sinclair's The Jungle (1906). It examines how both novels employ ideological idioms from the discipline of hygiene, idioms that construct the body as a nationalized and colonized entity. Chapter Three, "Gen(d)re Bending in the Fatherland," discusses Haru (Spring, 1907) and Shinsei (New Life, 1918-9), and Cather's O Pioneers! (1913). It explores how written texts produced by male and female characters in Haru and Shinsei are assigned to different speech genres, a tendency that places three forms of identity (gender, nationality, and authorship) in a relationship of mutual reinforcement. In contrast, Cather's novel describes texts whose authorship cannot easily be assigned gender or nationality. The chapter also examines a 1937 series of articles written by Hasegawa Komako, the model for the major female character in Shinsei. Chapter Four, "The Times of Nations," explores Yoake mae (Before the Dawn, 1929-35) and Dos Passos' U.S.A. (1930-6), focusing on the forms of temporality and spatiality that mark modern nationalism. It analyzes the historical narratives employed in several early critical essays on Yoake mae and explores the connections between these and the version of national history found in U.S.A. The final chapter, "Asymmetrical Conclusions," returns to Hakai and The Jungle to reflect on the methodologies used throughout the dissertation. |
