Beauty Matters: Modern Japanese Literature and the Question of Aesthetics, 1890-1930

In this talk, Anri Yasuda will discuss her book, Beauty Matters: Modern Japanese LIterature and the Question of Aesthetics, 1890-1930 (Columbia Univeresity Press, 2024), which examines how the literary writers attemtped to balance an engagement with lived realities and the pursuit of more beautiful ideals. The talk will focus on how literature’s capacity to depict the world as it appears to be, alongside visions of the world as it might otherwise be, constituted a formative tension for the novelist Natsume Soseki (1867-1916). Yasuda traces Soseki’s investigations into the conceptual possiblities of modern literature, particularly in comparison to the visual arts which were too undergoing major developments during this time period; while Soseki envisioned an overarching notion of art and beauty that transcended differences in medium, he also sought to delineate the distinctive properties of literary affect and thought, Yasuda proposes that the insights articulated by the Japanese writers of the early twentieth century have much to offer to current global debates about the purposes and goals of ‘literature’ and ‘art’, as the latest developments in AI technologies call for a reassemssment of what remains unique to humanity.