THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

“BETWEEN DISTANT REALITIES”: THE JAPANESE AVANT-GARDE,

SURREALISM, AND THE COLONIES, 1924-1943

VOLUME ONE

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A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO
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THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF

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DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
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BY

ANNIKA A. CULVER

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

JUNE 2007

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

VOLUME ONE

LIST OF FIGURES AND PHOTOGRAPHS.........................................................v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS..................................................................................vii
ABSTRACT............................................................................ xv

INTRODUCTION...................................................................................................1

Chapter
I. TRANSNATIONALISM, SURREALISM,AND THE AVANT-
GARDE IN THE JAPANESE EMPIRE, 1924-1941............................... 45
1.1. Scholarship on Japanese Surrealism and the Avant-Garde in

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Japan and Abroad.................................................................... 46
1.2. Modernism and the Avant-Garde in Imperial Japan...............50
1.3. Literary Surrealism in Japan................................................... 62
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1.4. Surrealism in Japanese Art......................................................83
1.5. Koga Harue’s Constellation of Modernity............................115
1.5.1. The Artist’s Background........................................116
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1.5.2. Surrealism and Koga Harue’s Avant-Garde
Connections...........................................................119
1.5.3. Umi and the Artist’s Emerging Surrealism.............123
1.5.4. Koga Harue’s Interpretation of Modernity and Walter
Benjamin’s Surrealist “Image Sphere”..................133
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II. THE MAKING OF A JAPANESE AVANT-GARDE IN COLONIAL

DAIREN, 1924-1937..........................................................................148
11.1. Prior Scholarship on the Avant-Garde in Japanese Colonial
Territory...............................................................................150
11.2. Dairen’s Imperialist Beginnings and Japanese Cultural
Dominance...........................................................................154
11.3. Transnational Flows of Trade and Culture between Japan,
Manchuria, Europe................................................................158
11.4. Colonial Dairen as a Cultural Center for the Japanese Avant-
Garde....................................................................................163
11.5. Changing Conceptions of Physical Space in the Cultural
Centers of Post-Earthquake Tokyo and Colonial Dairen... 171

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 II.6. Conclusion: Political Changes in Dairen’s Cultural
Landscape................................................................ 184

III. MIGISHI KOTARO’S SHANGHAI: SINO-JAPANESE

CULTURAL EXCHANGE AND AN ARTIST’S ROMANCING
OF AN AESTHETIC IDEAL IN TURBULENT TIMES, 1926-
1930....................................................................................................191
III. 1. Prior Scholarship on Sino-Japanese Cultural Relations and
Colonialism in Shanghai.....................................................194
111.2. Literature and the Nation: Sino-Japanese Literary
Connections and the May Fourth Movement......................197
111.3. Migishi Kotaro’s and Tanizaki Jun’ichiro’s Meeting With the
Chinese Author Tian Han in Shanghai.............................. 210
111.4. Migishi Kotaro’s Prose Poem Shanhai no ehon and

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Paintings..............................................................................224
111.5. China as “Oriental Other”: Shanghai in the Eyes of Migishi
Kotaro and Yokomitsu Ri’ichi, and Kitagawa Fuyuhiko’s
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Dairen..................................................................................238
111.6. Cinematic Reality and Montage in Shanhai no ehon and
Yokomitsu Ri’ichi’s Shanhai............................................. 249
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IV. ENVISIONING THE COLONIES: MANCHURIA AND THE

FASCINATION FOR THE NATIVE, 1929-1931........................... 264
IV. 1. Dairen and Southern Manchuria as a “Space of Colonial
Encounters”........................................................................ 268
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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

VOLUME TWO

Chapter
IV. ENVISIONING THE COLONIES: MANCHURIA AND THE
FASCINATION FOR THE NATIVE, 1929-1931, continued 275
IV.2. Anzai Fuyue and Kitagawa Fuyuhiko in Colonial Manchuria
and Their Development as Writers....................................275
IV.3. Surrealism and the Avant-Garde Encounter of Culture in the
Colonial Space....................................................................289
IV.4. Re-Envisioning “Imaginary Homelands” and Colonial
Development.......................................................................299
IV.5. Avant-Garde Views of the Flow of Oppression in the
Colonial System..................................................................306

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IV.6. The Masculinization of Colonial Manchuria and Gender
Relations in the Works of Kitagawa Fuyuhiko and Anzai
Fuyue..................................................................................316
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V. THE JAPANESE AVANT-GARDE IN SERVICE OF THE STATE,
1932-1943...........................................................................................333
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V.l. Manchuria and the Intellectual and Political Climate of Early

Showa Japan.........................................................................336
V.2. The Founding of Manchukuo and Its Insertion into Japan’s
Cultural Sphere....................................................................344
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V.3. Depictions of Manchuria and Labor by Japanese Photo­

graphers and Artists Invited by Mantetsu, 1933-1940........ 361
V.4. The Consolidation of Cultural Activities in Manchukuo as
Depicted by Naichi Writers During Wartime,1937-1943...403

CONCLUSION........................................................................................430

Appendix
A. SHANHAI NO EHON ENGLISH TRANSLATION........................ 445
B. POEMS BY ANZAI FUYUE AND TAKIGUCHI TAKESHI........ 453
C. FIGURES AND PHOTOGRAPHS...................................................456

BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................................................................474

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 List of Figures and Photographs
(Note: These figures and photographs appear in the back of the text.)
Figure:

1.1 Kitawaki Noboru (1901-1951); Kuko [Airport, 1937]. (in Mizusawa Tsutomu,
ed., Nihon no kindai bijutsu 10: fuan to senso no jidai [Japanese Modern Art
10: The Era of Uncertainty and War]. (Tokyo: Otsuki shoten, 1992), pp. 64-
65 insert), p. 84............................................................................................ 456

1.2 Fukuzawa Ichiro (1898-1994); Tanin no koi [The Love of Others, 1929]. (in
Mizusawa, Ibid, pp. 16-17 insert), p. 88...................................................... 457

1.3 Koga Harue (1895-1933); Umi [The Sea, 1929]. (in Tanaka Atsushi and

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Matsumura Eri, eds., Koga Harue—Sosaku no purosesu [Koga Harue—The
Creative Process] (Tokyo: Tokyo National Museum of Modem Art, 1991), p.
73), p. 110, 118, 122.................................................................................... 458
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1.4 Koga Harue; Madogai no kesho [Outdoor Make-Up, 1930], (in Tanaka and
Matsumura, eds, Ibid, p. 81), p. 118............................................................ 459
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2.1 South Manchurian Railways Headquarters, built in 1909. (in Song Zengbin,
ed., Dalian lao jianzhu [Old Buildings in Dalian] (Dalian: Xinhua Publishing
House, 2003), p. 148.................................................................................... 460
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2.2 Home built in the style of Japanese modernist architecture, (photograph taken
by Annika A. Culver, Dalian, PRC, February 2005), p. 170, 172............... 461

2.3 The Li Brothers’ homes in the Bunka-tai [Culture Rostrum] area of Dalian.
(in Song, Ibid), p. 172.................................................................................. 462

2.4 Laborer villages in the Si’ergou section of Dairen, (in Ji Fulin, ed., [Old
Scenes of Dalian] (Beijing: People’s Fine Arts Press, 1997), p. 173......... 463

3.1 Paintings by Migishi Kotaro (1900-1934) and Okada Shichizo (1896-

1942); Migishi, Nasubi [Eggplants, 1927], Chugoku no kabe [Chinese
Wall], Suika no zu [Depiction of a Watermelon]; Okada, Soshu fukei
[Scenery in Suzhou], Fukei [Scenery], Fukei [Scenery], and Soshu fukei

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 [Scenery in Suzhou], (In Hokkaido Migishi Kotaro Art Museum, ‘Shanhai
no ehon ’—Chugoku modan toshi no shi [“Shanghai Picture Book”—A
Poem About a Modern Chinese City, 2002) p. 23), p. 223, 224, 226.......... 464

3.2 Paintings by Migishi; Shina no shojo [China Girl, 1926], Chugoku fujin
gunzo [A Group of Chinese Ladies, 1927], Roba wo hiku musume [Girl
Pulling a Donkey, 1926], Musume [Girl, 1926], Musume [Girl, 1926],
Musume futari [Two Girls, 1926], and Musume [Girl, 1926],
(in Hokkaido Migishi Kotaro Art Museum, Ibid, p. 17), p. 225, 226.......... 465

5.1 Cover image of a Chinese peasant reaping the harvest in millet fields, (in
South Manchurian Railways, Manshu [Manchurian Graphic] (November
1933), unpaginated), p. 355....................................................................... 466

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5.2 Image of the dorms for coolies built by the South Manchuria Railways
corporation in the Bishanzhuang section of Dairen, (in SMR, Ibid, (May
1936), unpaginated), p. 174, 357................................................................. 467
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5.3 Photograph by Masanori Nobuyoshi (dates unknown); Rojo seibutsu [Still
Life on the Road, 1937].(in SMR, Ibid, (June 1937), unpag.), p. 361........ 468
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5.4 Fukuzawa Ichiro, Ushi [Oxen, 1936], (in Otani Shogo, Chiheisen noyume:
Showa 10 nendai no genso kaiga [Dream of the Horizon: Fantastic Paintings
in Japan, 1935-1945] (Tokyo: National Museum of Modem Art, 2003), p.
90), p. 89,94, 376........................................................................................ 469
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5.5 Suzuki Yasunori (1891-1974), Yokotawareru Manshu dojin [Reclining

Manchurian, 1936]. [in Otani, Ibid, p. 87], p. 379, 381.............................. 470

5.6 Sukuki Yasunori, Kokuto kensetsu, [Constructing the Capital, 1936].

[in Otani, Ibid, p. 86], p. 381....................................................................... 471

5.7 Shimizu Toshi (1887-1945), Mokd fukei (Takahara. Onna. uma) [Scene
from Mongolia (High Plains/Woman/Horses, 1936)]. [In Otani, Ibid, p. 85],
p. 382........................................................................................................... 472

5.8 Shimizu Toshi, Kyucho Mokojin [Mongolian Saving a Bird, 1936]. [in Otani,
Ibid, p. 84], p. 386........................................................................................ 473

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 Acknowledgments

I thank the University of Chicago for funding my studies for four years from

2001-2005 through a William Hutchinson Family scholarship. The University

also provided me with the Kundstadter Grant and a Center for East Asian Studies

grant to conduct pre-dissertation research for six weeks in Tokyo, Hayama, and

Kamakura from September to October 2003. The Fulbright USIE foundation

awarded me a Fulbright Graduate Research Grant for 15 months of research from

September 2004 to November 2005 in Tokyo at Waseda University. A research

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travel grant from the Fulbright organization also permitted me to conduct two
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weeks of research in libraries in Dalian and Harbin, China. I am grateful to the

Japan Committee at the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of
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Chicago for funding a year-long dissertation write-up grant from summer quarter

2006 to winter 2007, and granting me a teaching fellowship for autumn quarter

2006. In addition, the Center funded my trips to present papers on materials

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related to this dissertation at conferences at the University of Colorado at Boulder,

University of Wisconsin-Madison, Princeton University, Harvard University,

Perdue University, and George Washington University. Diane Yurco and Ted

Foss at the Center of East Asian Studies have also been extremely helpful to me.

I wish to thank my dissertation advisor, James E. Ketelaar, Professor of

Japanese History at the University of Chicago, for demonstrating his interest in art

history by encouraging an interdisciplinary cultural history study that incorporates

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 both art and literature. In brainstorming meetings in his office presided over by

an eighteenth century baroque clock amidst a decor of book-lined walls and Qing

dynasty chairs, I formally began to articulate the framework of this dissertation.

Ketelaar has consistently supported me to take on difficult topics and to expand

my realm of expertise beyond Japanese history in a more transnational focus.

Norma Field, Professor of Japanese Literature and Japanese Studies at the

University of Chicago, has been extraordinarily helpful in her critique of my

writing and conveyance of ideas while stressing the need to look critically at the

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complex politics of the writers and artists I am studying. She has consistently

given me excellent advice and recommendations on research materials as well as

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provided my intellectual foundation for the study of Japanese literature. I also

thank her for appointing me as the student coordinator of the Proletarian

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Literatures of East Asia workshop, later renamed as the Arts and Politics of East

Asia workshop, which allowed me to meet or host scholars of various disciplines

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in East Asian Studies as well as provide a venue for my collegues’ work.

I thank James F. Lastra, Professor of English and Cinema and Media Studies,

for elucidating the mysteries of Surrealism to me in class and engaging me in

further discussions on Surrealism and exoticism. Lastra has helped me to

critically engage with visual media like film and art, and has strengthened my

theoretical grasp o f the materials.

Heather Bowen-Struyk, University of Chicago post-doctoral fellow 2001-

2004, was instrumental in guiding me on my first steps in the study of Japanese

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 literature. Her fascinating two-quarter class on Japanese proletarian literature

with fellow graduate student Brian Bergstrom taught us how to critically read

novels, essays, and literary criticism from interwar Japan. She also encouraged us

to present in conferences and publicize our work while still at the graduate level.

I wish to thank my fellow colleagues Tanya Maus and Patti Kameya who as

sempai mentored me in navigating my first steps in the Ph.D. program in Japanese

history at the University of Chicago. They also gave me invaluable moral support.

In the three times that I conducted research in Japan in the summer of 2001,

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autumn of 2003, and September 2004 to November 2005,1 gratefully received the

assistance of several curators in art museums, literary critics, and scholars. I am

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always humbled by their generosity. During my visits to the Tokyo National

Museum of Modem Art, assistant curator Otani Shogo gave me personal tours of
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the collections and provided critical explanations of the various paintings

displayed. On several occasions, he kindly engaged me in lengthy discussions

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about the politics of surrealist artists like Koga Harue and Fukuzawa Ichiro.

Otani was not only generous with his time, but also gave me exhibition catalogues

and sent me copies of rare sources and free tickets to museum exhibitions.

I thank Mizusawa Tsutomu, Curator at the Museum of Modem Art in

Kamakura, for giving me a personal tour of the newly opened Museum of Modem

Art in Hayama in 2003, as well as providing me with an exhibition catalogue o f

these collections. That same month, he personally guided me around his museum

in Kamakura as well arranged a private viewing of warehoused works by Koga

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 Harue, Aso Saburo, Matsuoka Shunsuke, and others while the museum was

closed to the public for renovation. In our discussions on avant-garde art in the

twenties, Mizusawa noted Kawabata Yasunari’s generous donations of Koga’s

works to the museum and his role in its establishment.

I am grateful to the literary critic and poet Tsuruoka Yoshihisa for meeting

with me in 2001 and 2003 in his well-appointed office and atelier stocked with

African masks, surrealist etchings by Miro and Dali, and photographs of

Takiguchi and Breton. He showed me original copies of A and Shi to shiron and

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gave me copies of rare sources on Takiguchi’s and Fukuzawa’s arrest information

as well as provided me with materials on Kitagawa and Anzai. His conversations

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were instrumental in helping me to form an idea of these two poets as individuals.

I appreciate the generous help of Tan’o Yasunori for serving as my advisor

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during my pre-dissertation research at Waseda University in 2003. He later served

as my research co-advisor along with his colleague Takahashi Seiori from 2004-
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2005. Along with other invaluable resources periodically mined from his

extensive library compiled from flea markets and Jimbocho book sales that he

generouosly loaned to me, he gave me two excellent source books in French by

Maurice Nadeau on the history of Surrealism and an edition of surrealist

documents after his return from Paris in 2005. Professor Tan’6 also increased my

appreciation o f Japanese popular culture through his whimsical collections o f

figurines and assorted historical materials depicting the emperor. Each visit to his

office was like a portal into another era with his collections of the ephemera of

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 different historical periods in Japan. Professor Tan’os enthusiasm and delight in

sharing resources encouraged my research.

I thank Timon Screech for teaching my first class in Japanese art history at

the University of Chicago, and for connecting me with his friend Tan’o Yasunori.

Tim inspired in me a deep appreciation for Japanese visual culture through his

enthusiastic teaching and class field trips to the Art Institute of Chicago for

private viewings of centuries-old Japanese art.

I am much indebted to Takahashi Seori, who served as my dissertation

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research advisor in Japan at the Waseda University political science and

economics department. The graduate seminar that he taught on Japanese

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literature and culture was especially illuminating, and I am thankful he allowed

me to attend the lectures and presentations of his students. Takahashi Sensei

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kindly donated free tickets to exhibitions and avant-garde musical performances

to us, greatly enriching our experience of contemporary modem arts and culture
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in Japan. In addition, his anecdotes about his colleague Yoshimazu Gozo’o and

the childhood exploits of Arakawa Shusaku always enlivened the class and

enabled me to have a more nuanced view of these often larger than life figures

known for their poetry and artistic endeavors. Having Takahashi as my advisor

not only stimulated my intellectual research, but also that of my palate. His

monthly graduate seminar was never without delicious omiyage offered by

himself or his students. He also invited us to dinner that he personally cooked to

celebrate the birthday of a friend at the architect’s home in Akasaka where we

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 were welcomed with a demonstration of the tea ceremony after dinner.

Takahashi’s deep intellectual interest in the modernist and avant-garde literature

of the twenties and his willingness to share others’ experiential knowledge from

that time period helped us to understand the complexities of this era

I wish to thank Takahashi’s friend Arakawa Shusaku for engaging me in an

hour-long call from New York to my apartment in Tokyo after I attempted to

contact him in Japan. We discussed topics ranging from theoretical physics,

phenomenology, post-war Surrealism, to my belief that he is the only surrealist

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architect in Japan. I met Arakawa with Yoshie Osawa during a lecture he gave at

Tokyo University promoting his “Reversible Destiny” project in Mitaka. The

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visit to his newly built condominium structure in Mitaka with a group of Waseda

University architecture professors and students was especially interesting and

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illuminated me about his artistic and architectural vision. Homma Momoyo of his

office in Mitaka kindly gave us a tour of the building and offered us copies of the
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blueprints for the structure.

I much appreciate the help and stimulating intellectual discussions of

Kobayashi Hideo, history professor in the international studies section of Waseda

University. I met him after he served as the discussant for my panel at the AJJ

annual meeting at Sophia University. Not only did Kobayashi’s discussions about

Manchuria enhance my research, he generously presented me with copies o f his

numerous books on the South Manchurian Railroad and the total war system. He

also organized our panel with Mark Caprio on total war and culture for the Social

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 and Economic History Meeting at Hitotsubashi University in the spring of 2005.

I am grateful for Nakagawa Shigemi for being such a kind host at

Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto in December 2004. Over an Italian dinner with

his graduate students in a Meiji-period villa, Nakagawa gave me helpful

information about Anzai Fuyue and illuminated us about his recent projects.

Brian Bergstrom, my classmate at the University of Chicago, while hosting me in

Kyoto, gave me a tour of the campus and facilitated lodging arrangements.

Oda Kyuro, president of Shich6-sha publishing, was helpful in discussing

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Kitagawa Fuyuhiko and his work in a personal interview in the summer of 2001.

I thank the Tokyo Kindai bungaku-kan [Modem Literature Museum] for

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their help in locating rare sources as well as making endless copies for me. I also

wish to express my appreciation to the librarians of the Tokyo University library

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for helping me to find original writings by Kitagawa Fuyuhiko in the summer of

2001. In addition, I would like to thank Ms. Chen Yanjun and the other librarians
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of the Dalian Library in the People’s Republic of China for their efforts in

February of 2005 in helping me obtain original Chinese sources on the history of

colonial Dairen. I was permitted to read rare materials that allowed me to view

the life of the Han Chinese working class and contrast this to that of wealthy

Japanese colonists and the Chinese upper class.

I am grateful to the author, translator, and former Fulbrighter Yoshie Osawa

for ongoing moral support and gracious hospitality in Tokyo, where she

introduced me to the pleasures of kabuki and decadent eight-course lunches in

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 Ginza. Since I met her at the University of Chicago in 2001, Yoshie has been

very encouraging of my work and constantly engages me in interesting

discussions on film, race and culture, and colonialism in China.

I also thank the teachers at the Toyama yochi-en [Toyama Christian

Preschool], Ms. Aiko Kobayashi, Ms. Morita, and Nakano-Sensei, for taking

excellent care of my son Ian and teaching him Japanese and Japanese customs in a

school setting. I am also deeply indebted to the many Japanese friends of mine

including Mrs. Fujiwara, Mrs. Tanaka, Mrs. Han, and others who warmly invited

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me into their homes to bring my son to play dates with their children, provided me

with valuable moral support, and occasionally cared for my son while I was
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writing and researching my dissertation in Tokyo and traveling to various

conferences. I am also grateful for the ongoing support of Dr. Rose Campbell,
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who was our neighbor during our stay at Waseda.

Last, but not least, I wish to thank my family for providing both the
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emotional and financial resources to help me to complete this project and for

caring for my son Ian. Liu Yong has also allowed me a more personal view into

the history of Manchuria and China’s northeast. I am grateful to Ian for keeping

me balanced with his love and quirky sense of humor during my graduate studies.

This dissertation is dedicated to him and my father.

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 Abstract

This dissertation investigates Surrealism as a form of avant-garde

expression coinciding with Japan’s moment of imperial expansion into China and

the continent from 1924-1943. I interrogate the meaning of avant-garde in Japan

and argue that Japanese imperialism shaped an environment conducive to the rise

of literary and artistic movements in dialogue with international trends. The

spatial loci of Tokyo, Dairen, Shanghai, and Manchukuo structure my discussion

as “contact zones”1while I analyze the often equivocating images of writers and

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artists experimenting with Surrealism including Koga Harue, Kitagawa Fuyuhiko,

Anzai Fuyue, Migishi Kotaro, Fukuzawa Ichiro, and others who depicted Japan,
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China, and Manchuria during key moments in Sino-Japanese relations.2 I argue
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that oscillation between the central imperial capital of Tokyo and encounters with

the colonial periphery deeply informed Japanese literary and artistic production

from the interwar period until the late thirties. I also discuss the imperial
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government’s varied reactions to avant-garde depictions of China and the colonial

space in relation to changes in domestic and foreign policy.

The first part of this introduction outlines subsequent chapters, gives an

1 See Chapters One and Four for a detailed discussion o f this term and who originated it.

2 These periods can be characterized by the following trends: 1) Growing cultural and
economic exchanges between Japan and China, 1924-1927, 2) Rising tensions and conflict in
Shanghai and Manchuria, 1929-1933, 3) The establishment o f Manchukuo and the worsening of
civil war in China, 1932-1937, and 4) The Second Sino-Japanese War and the total war system in
Japan, 1937-1943.

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 overview of the field, notes the sources used, discusses terms referenced, and

delineates the reasons why certain authors and artists are chosen. Then, I explain

the methodology and theoretical framework of the dissertation where I balance a

cultural history analysis of a particular historical moment and geographical space

with close readings of literary and artistic works by one or more of the figures

discussed in the chapter. As preparation for the first chapter, the last section of

the introduction provides a historical context for the introduction of Western

literary and art movements and the beginnings of avant-garde literature and art in

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Japan prior to Surrealism’s advent.

The first chapter, “Transnationalism, Surrealism, and the Avant-Garde in

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the Japanese Empire, 1924-1941” outlines the history of the surrealist movement

in Japanese literature and art with Tokyo as the political and cultural capital of
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imperial Japan. Subsequent chapters, including this one, argue that Surrealism

was an avant-garde aesthetic well-suited for depicting the inconsistencies and

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radical incongruities of colonialism, and situate this artistic and literary form as a

reflection of the transnational nature of modernity and imperialism. I also discuss

how the terms “avant-garde” and “modernism” are used in Japan in the twenties

and thirties. I focus on the roles played by the figures articulating and

disseminating Surrealism, including Nishiwaki Junzaburo, Takiguchi Shuzo,

Kitasono Katsue, Kanbara Tai, Koga Harue, Fukuzawa Ichiro, Kitagawa

Fuyuhiko, and others, until Takiguchi’s and Fukuzawa’s arrest in 1941 on

suspicion of Communist sympathies.

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 The second part of the first chapter analyzes the poem and painting Umi

$$ [The Sea, 1929] by Koga Harue as a representative work of a Tokyo-based

surrealist artist working in interdisciplinary media at a transitional time in cultural

production when literary Surrealism waned but began to flourish in the art world.

The late twenties and early thirties when Koga created his best-known works

mark Japan’s increasing involvement in foreign affairs and imperial expansion on

the continent. In this context, the artist’s version of Japanese modernity appears

as strikingly progressive, cosmopolitan, and hybrid in its blend of East and West

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when transposed against the “traditional.” Koga’s work represents many of the

characteristics of Japanese Surrealism in his dialectical embrace of the tensions of

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modernity while maintaining a bourgeois aloofness from direct political activism

in his social critique.

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In the second chapter, “The Making of a Japanese Avant-Garde in

Colonial Dairen, 1924-1937,” I discuss how the Manchurian port city of Dairen
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became a cultural center for Japanese avant-garde literary and artistic production

in the twenties and thirties until the Manchukuo government shifted cultural

production to the capital of Shinkyo (Changchun). I reveal this city’s intimate

relationship to the beginnings of a surrealist movement in domestic Japan through

a peripatetic Japanese expatriate community and the establishment of two avant-

garde literary magazines, A M [“A”sia] and Shi to shiron I# t [Poetry and

Poetics]. I also examine the transnational flow of aesthetic and literary ideas

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 between Tokyo and Dairen, and the economic and political factors enabling

Japanese and Western avant-garde movements to flourish in this peripheral

cultural outpost of the Japanese empire. The chapter’s conclusion details how the

Manchukuo government attempted to shift cultural production inland to Shinkyo

and the effect this had on Japanese avant-garde activities in Dairen.

In Chapter Three, “Migishi Kotaro’s Shanghai: Sino-Japanese Cultural

Exchange and an Artist’s Romancing of an Aesthetic Ideal in Turbulent Times,

1926-1930,” I investigate an example of the transcultural exchange of avant-garde

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Japanese and Chinese writers and artists at a critical time in Sino-Japanese

relations during the interwar period. I first discuss the historical background of
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the “May Fourth” generation of Chinese intellectuals in the cosmopolitan city of

Shanghai, and then focus on the surrealist painter and poet Migishi Kotaro’s
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historic meeting with the Chinese playwright Tian Han in 1926 as part of

Tanizaki Jun’ichiro’s entourage.

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In the second part of the chapter, I compare Migishi’s poem Shanhai no

ehon [Shanghai Picture Book, 1930] and paintings of China [1926-

1930] with Yokomitsu Ri’chi’s novel Shanhai _h$| [Shanghai, 1928-1932] and

Kitagawa Fuyuhiko’s poetry or short stories set in Dairen [1929] to analyze how

China is viewed in cinematic descriptions by these writers during a transitional

time in Sino-Japanese relations when Surrealism flourished in the art world.

Despite Migishi’s meetings with progressive Chinese intellectuals of the May

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 Fourth generation like Tian Han, his public vision of China reveals his romantic

nostalgia for the traditional past of this country in rapid socio-political transition

even though unpublished drafts of his poem display his conflicted, private

feelings about the unevenness of development. This inherent tension echoes the

sentiments of Japanese writers and artists from all political spectra expressed in

their works in the late twenties and early thirties.

In Chapter Four, “Envisioning the Colonies: Manchuria and the

Fascination for the Native, 1929-1931,” I analyze the historical background

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behind the poetry and short stories of Anzai Fuyue and Kitagawa Fuyuhiko, who

after the Dairen-based journal A dissolved, continue their literary pursuits in

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Tokyo with Shi to shiron. The first part of the chapter gives a brief history of the

colonial contact zone of Manchuria characterized by successive layers of Chinese,

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Russian, and Japanese colonialism, and then details Anzai’s and Kitagawa’s

personal connections to Manchuria and their literary activities. The last section
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analyzes individual works of these writers who persistently set their poetic

experiments in southeastern Manchuria or Dairen in the late twenties to early

thirties at a time when the government began to repress left-wing literature in

domestic Japan and promote military expansion in China. While Anzai and

Kitagawa create a rare depiction of the devastating human cost of the imperialist

development o f Manchuria around the time o f the Manchurian Incident in 1931,

their works reveal an equivocating view of colonized peoples in their fetishization

of the body of the Chinese coolie laborer or child prostitute. I argue that

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 Kitagawa and Anzai exoticize the colonial space, and thereby still reproduce the

same visual structures of Japanese colonialism that they critique.

The first part of Chapter Five, “The Japanese Avant-Garde in Service of

the State, 1932-1943” investigates how the South Manchurian Railroad [or

Mantetsu, and the Manchukuo government sponsored visiting avant-garde

Japanese writers and artists to promote a cosmopolitan vision of Japanese culture

in the construction of the new nation as an integral part of the imperial cultural

sphere. In the second part of the chapter, I describe how cultural activities in

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Manchukuo were increasingly organized to reflect the new nation’s dependence

on the naichi [domestic Japan]. I also investigate how during the total war
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system after 1938, cultural associations in Manchukuo were consolidated to

conform to the ideals of the imperial state at war with China. I discuss how the
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poet Haruyama Yukio and the writer Kawabata Yasunari viewed these two

developments in their writings related to their trip to Manchuria. Throughout the

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chapter, I analyze the written and artistic images produced by the avant-garde

who visited Manchukuo including the photographer Fuchikami Hakuyo, the

theorist of Surrealism Fukuzawa Ichiro, and the editor of Shi to shiron, Haruyama

Yukio.

In my conclusion, I summarize points discussed in previous chapters. I

also elaborate on certain issues referenced in this dissertation that deserve further

study but are beyond the scope of the current project such as the nature of realism

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 in literature and arts, literary debates on the “correct” interpretation of Andre

Breton’s Surrealism, the writings and art of Japanese observers of China in the

twenties and thirties not associated with the avant-garde, and how Chinese writers

and artists educated in Japan viewed this nation during an increasingly turbulent

time for political events in Sino-Japanese relations.

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 Introduction

Significance of the Project

Since the end of the Cold War, scholars worldwide have begun to re-

explore the complex political questions debated by left-wing intellectuals at the

beginning of the Showa period. These include the role of literature and the arts in

communicating political ideals. Facilitated by the opening up of new archives

and greater accessibility to resources through the removal of restrictions to

foreign scholars and computerized cataloguing like that of the National Diet

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Library in Tokyo, research related to the Japanese avant-garde is enjoying a new
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popularity. Rather than focusing exclusively on the intriguing question of the

diverse politics of the avant-garde in Japan, I view Surrealism as a form of

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expression used by some figures of the Japanese avant-garde to describe the

defamiliarizing space of their own imperial capital of Tokyo, Shanghai, or even

Manchuria (and later, Manchukuo). My intent is to emphasize the role of

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imperialism in avant-garde cultural production, including that in the mode of

Surrealism. Part of the title of this dissertation contains the phrase, “Between

Distant Realities,” which is a term created by Miryam Sas to describe the position

of Japanese surrealist writers. I believe that these “distant realities” could refer to

those of the colonies and domestic Japan, modernity and “tradition,” East or West,

or that of the bourgeoisie and proletariat. This dissertation concentrates on that

ambiguous space located in the mental or physical movement between these

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 realities where descriptive visions arise from the writer’s or artist’s experience of

modernity. How cultural production serves to describe this is often inextricably

linked with the individual’s own political ideals.

This dissertation addresses a topic that is not commonly researched in

English language scholarship of East Asian history. I am seeking to add a

contribution in a study that combines a discussion of both literary and artistic

cultural production in the mode of Surrealism and sets it into a historical context

of rising imperialism and engagement on the East Asian continent.

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Overview of the Field

Studies of Japanese Surrealism in literature and art in addition to

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exhibition catalogues have been published in Japan, France, Germany, Australia,

and the United States. With an exception of Wada Hirofumi’s comprehensive

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fifteen-volume collection of source materials and essays on Surrealism in Japan,

there are few texts on the topic in any country that discuss both literature and art.

Most of the references I cite lack a focus emphasizing the historical context for

the Japanese avant-garde writers or artists engaged in working in this mode of

expression.1

Beginning in the late sixties, the literary critic and poet Tsuruoka

1 For a more detailed discussion o f this topic, see the beginning of Chapter One.

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