CJS Noon Lecture Series | On Listening: Murakami Haruki and the Prejudices of Global Literature

Murakami Haruki is exceptional in many ways, among them the extent of the popularity his works have achieved in translations around the world, and the persistence with which critics have framed this very popularity as an index of his failure to be “Japanese” enough. This talk will use Murakami as a case study to propose a shift in the way we understand the structure of literature as a global phenomenon and the position of writers in it, and to try and bridge the gap that has emerged between the values implicit in discussions of literature as a global phenomenon and those that often govern the teaching of literature in American contexts.

Michael Emmerich is Professor of Japanese literature at UCLA and Director of the Tadashi Yanai Initiative for Globalizing Japanese Humanities. His books include The Tale of Genji: Translation, Canonization, and World Literature; Tentekomai: bungaku wa hi kurete michi tōshi; Read Real Japanese Fiction: Short Stories by Contemporary Writers; and New Penguin Parallel Texts: Short Stories in Japanese.

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