Terayama Shuji - Literat, Theatermacher, Filmregisseur

What can literary and artistic works tell us about their time? And how can they discursively shape it? Carolin Fleischer-Heininger examines the construction of post-war Japan in the literary, dramatic, and cinematic works of Terayama Shuji (1935-1983), referencing theories of globalization in cultural and literary studies and against the backdrop of significant literary, cultural, social, and intellectual contexts. Terayama was one of the most influential, innovative, versatile, and internationally visible, yet also one of the most controversial representatives of the Japanese counterculture of that era. In doing so, Fleischer-Heininger looks at the phenomenon of 'Terayama' in its complexity and diversity: she considers the spatial frameworks that guide Terayama's counter-world designs—Aomori, Japan, and the world—and analyzes Terayama's works in terms of formal and stylistic characteristics of interconnections, as well as their negotiation of the prevailing narratives in post-war Japan regarding foundational historiography and a homogeneous cultural-national identity of Japan. The study aims to do justice to the contradictory yet interpretively open work of Terayama. Furthermore, it highlights Terayama's positioning in contemporary discourses through contrasting references to his contemporaries. Additionally, the study includes a commented translation of the play 'Sen‘ichiya monogatari: Shinjuku-ban' (1968).