Yoshimi Takeuchi

nihongo|Yoshimi Takeuchi|竹内 好|"Takeuchi Yoshimi"|October 2, 1910 in the town of Usuda, Saku District, Nagano Prefecture - March 3, 1977 of esophageal cancer was a distinguished Japanese student of China and Chinese literature, a cultural critic and translator. [Maruyama Tesshi, Suzuki Masaharu (eds) "Takeuchi Yoshimi serekushyon: ｢Sengo shisō｣ o yominaosu ", Nihon Keizai Hyōronsha, Tokyo 2006.] .

In 1931 Takeuchi graduated from high school and entered the department of Sinology at Tokyo University, where he encountered Taijun Takeda. Together they founded a Chinese literature study group. He was drafted into the army in 1943 and sent to China where he spent the rest of the war years. The encounter with the real living China and Chinese, as opposed to the abstract China of his studies, made a deep impression of Takeuchi. He threw himself into a study of the modern colloquial language. ["The Cambridge History of Modern Japan", vol.6 pp.770-772] . After repatriation, he became a lecturer at Keio University, then full professor at Tokyo Municipal University, a post he resigned in protest at abuses of parliamentary voting procedures during the period of civil unrest and protest that arose during the process of ratification of the new Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan in 1960. He was founding editor of the journal “China” , a passionate defender of Mao Zedong and the Chinese Cultural Revolution and wrote on and researched extensively the life and writings of the modern Chinese novelist Lu Xun, whose collected works he translated. An advocate of Pan-Asianism, he was a fierce critic of the Japanese Army’s invasion of Asian countries. At the same time, he retrospectively interpreted the famous debates on "Overcoming Modernity " (近代の超克) [Takeuchi, Yoshimi, 'Kindaika to dentō,’ in "Kindai Nihon shisōshi kōza", Chikuma Shobō, vol.7 Tokyo 1959] ' held in wartime Japan by intellectuals seeking to interpret Japanese imperialism’s Asian mission in a positive historical light, as not simply a fawning on Fascism , but rather ultimately, a step in the proper direction of Japan's destiny as an integral part of Asia. [Richard Calichman (tr and ed.) "What Is Modernity? Writings of Takeuchi Yoshimi ", Columbia University Press, New York 2005]

Works

* Lu Xun
*"Takeuchi Yoshimi Hyōronshū", 3 vols. Chikuma Shobō, Tokyo 1966
*"Kindai no chōkoku",
*"Nihon ro Ajia",
*"Nihon no Ajia-shugi",
*"Hōhō to shite no Ajia: Waga senzen.senchū.sengo 1935-1976", Sōjusha, Tokyo 1978.

References

External links

* [http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=_RN8bt1csQ4C&dq=Yoshimi+Takeuchi&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=y5DVIUn6HJ&sig=IE3XetF4vP39jEivOPZDZg2vUvo&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result What Is Modernity?]
* [http://www.iias.nl/nl/46/IIAS_NL46_2425.pdf Takeuchi Yoshimi and the dilemmas of resistance to global capitalist modernity1]