Jeffrey Angles | Western Michigan University (original) (raw)

Books by Jeffrey Angles

These Things Here and Now: Poetic Responses to the March 11, 2011 Disasters, 2016

"In a time that for many of us in Tokyo and beyond feels far removed from the events of March 11, 2011, when we are not sure how to retain and respect those moments and their aftermath, this collection does exactly that. Jeffrey Angles' smart, useful introduction and the poems in this collection help us find a language of grace, dignity and poignancy, not only to look back but also to look forward." --David H. Slater

Despite its centuries-long tradition of literary and artistic depictions of love between men, in ... more Despite its centuries-long tradition of literary and artistic depictions of love between men, in the late nineteenth century, Japanese culture began to portray same-sex desire as immoral and even pathologically deviant. Writing the Love of Boys looks at the response to this mindset during the critical era of cultural ferment between the two world wars as a number of Japanese writers challenged the idea of love and desire between men as pathological. This book focuses on a handful of key, modernist writers from the Taishō (1912-1926) and the first two decades of the Shōwa period (1926-1989), examining how they experimented with new language, genres, and ideas to find fresh ways to represent love and desire between men. In particular, the book focuses on the personal and literary relationships between contemporaries such as the poet Murayama Kaita, the mystery writers Edogawa Ranpo and Hamao Shirō, the anthropologist Iwata Jun’ichi, and the avant-garde innovator Inagaki Taruho.

Writing the Love of Boys shows how these authors interjected the subject of male–male desire into discussions of modern art, aesthetics, and perversity. It also explores the impact of their efforts on contemporary Japanese culture, including the development of the tropes of male homoeroticism that recur so often in Japanese girls’ manga about bishōnen love.

Translated Books by Jeffrey Angles

Alternating between the California desert and the overgrown landscapes of her native Japan, this ... more Alternating between the California desert and the overgrown landscapes of her native Japan, this book-length, narrative poem by Japan's foremost feminist poet, Hiromi Itō, tracks the life of a group of children lead back and forth across the Pacific by their poet mother. This book plunges readings into dreamlike landscapes of volatile proliferation--a world where nothing is clear cut and where the boundaries of native/foreign, indigenous/migrant, plant/animal, human/inhuman, male/female, alive/dead, all disappear. At once grotesque and vertiginous, this masterpiece--one of the first narrative poems to be written in contemporary Japan--interweaves mythology, language, sexuality, and place into a genre-breaking narrative about what it is to live in multiple worlds at once.

"In Wild Grass on the Riverbank, Japan's wildest poet introduces a previously foreign and most unlikely genre--the book-length narrative--and recasts it in her own image. Itō is a ferocious, uncompromising, singular voice, and these poems will enrich your days, even as they trouble your sleep." --Kyle Minor

This is the first English translation of a controversial Japanese best seller that made the publi... more This is the first English translation of a controversial Japanese best seller that made the public aware of the social problem of hikikomori, or “withdrawal”—a phenomenon estimated by the author to involve as many as one million Japanese adolescents and young adults who have withdrawn from society, retreating to their rooms for months or years and severing almost all ties to the outside world. Saitō Tamaki’s work of popular psychology provoked a national debate about the causes and extent of the condition.

Since Hikikomori was published in Japan in 1998, the problem of social withdrawal has increasingly been recognized as an international one, and this translation promises to bring much-needed attention to the issue in the English-speaking world. According to the New York Times, “As a hikikomori ages, the odds that he’ll re-enter the world decline. Indeed, some experts predict that most hikikomori who are withdrawn for a year or more may never fully recover. That means that even if they emerge from their rooms, they either won’t get a full-time job or won’t be involved in a long-term relationship. And some will never leave home. In many cases, their parents are now approaching retirement, and once they die, the fate of the shut-ins—whose social and work skills, if they ever existed, will have atrophied—is an open question.”

Drawing on his own clinical experience with hikikomori patients, Saitō creates a working definition of social withdrawal and explains its development. He argues that hikikomori sufferers manifest a specific, interconnected series of symptoms that do not fit neatly with any single, easily identifiable mental condition, such as depression.

Rejecting the tendency to moralize or pathologize, Saitō sensitively describes how families and caregivers can support individuals in withdrawal and help them take steps toward recovery. At the same time, his perspective sparked contention over the contributions of cultural characteristics—including family structure, the education system, and gender relations—to the problem of social withdrawal in Japan and abroad.

From one of the foremost poets in contemporary Japan comes this entrancing memoir that traces a b... more From one of the foremost poets in contemporary Japan comes this entrancing memoir that traces a boy’s childhood and its intersection with the rise of the Japanese empire and World War II. Originally published in 1970, this translation is the first available in English.

In twelve chapters that visit and revisit critical points in his boyhood, Twelve Views from the Distance presents a vanished time and place through the eyes of an accomplished poet. Recounting memories from his youth, Mutsuo Takahashi captures the full range of his internal life as a boy, shifting between his experiences and descriptions of childhood friendships, games, songs, and school. With great candor, he also discusses the budding awareness of his sexual preference for men, providing a rich exploration of one man’s early queer life in a place where modern, Western-influenced models of gay identity were still unknown.

Growing up poor in rural southwestern Japan, far from the urban life that many of his contemporaries have written about, Takahashi experienced a reality rarely portrayed in literature. In addition to his personal remembrances, the book paints a vivid portrait of rural Japan, full of oral tradition, superstition, and remnants of customs that have quickly disappeared in postwar Japan. With profuse local color and detail, he re-creates the lost world that was the setting for his beginnings as a gay man and poet."

Collection of poems and essays by the leading contemporary Japanese poet Takahashi Mutsuo inspire... more Collection of poems and essays by the leading contemporary Japanese poet Takahashi Mutsuo inspired by artwork by the American multimedia artist Joseph Cornell. Includes English translation by Jeffrey Angles. This catalog, with its award-winning design, was produced in conjunction with a Cornell x Takahashi exhibition held at the Kawamura Memorial Art Museum in 2010.

One of Japan's most important modern poets, Tada Chimako (1930-2003) gained prominence in her nat... more One of Japan's most important modern poets, Tada Chimako (1930-2003) gained prominence in her native country for her sensual, frequently surreal poetry and fantastic imagery. Although Tada's writing is an essential part of postwar Japanese poetry, her use of themes and motifs from European, Near Eastern, and Mediterranean history, mythology, and literature, as well as her sensitive explorations of women's inner lives make her very much a poet of the world. Forest of Eyes offers English-language readers their first opportunity to read a wide selection from Tada's extraordinary oeuvre, including nontraditional free verse, poems in the traditional forms of tanka and haiku, and prose poems. Translator Jeffrey Angles introduces this collection with an essay that situates Tada as a poet, explores her unique style, and analyzes her contribution to the representation of women in postwar Japanese literature.

Hiromi Ito, born in 1955 in Tokyo, is one of the most important and dynamic poets of contemporary... more Hiromi Ito, born in 1955 in Tokyo, is one of the most important and dynamic poets of contemporary Japanese literature. After her sensational debut in the late 1970s, she emerged as the foremost voice of the wave of women's poetry that swept Japan in the 1980s. To date, she has published more than a dozen collections of poetry, several novels, and numerous books of essays.

"KILLING KANOKO is a powerful, long-overdue collection (in fine translation) of poetry from the radical Japanese feminist poet, Hiromi Itō. Her poems reverberate with sexual candor, the exigencies and delights of the paradoxically restless/rooted female body, and the visceral imagery of childbirth leap off the page as performative modal structures--fierce, witty, and vibrant. Hiromi is a true sister of the Beats." --Anne Waldman

"The appearance of this generous and beautifully rendered translation of Hiromi Itō's poetry is a significant and memorable event for American letters. For Itō is poet of truly international stature, whose work breaks down barriers of language and gender, bringing an unprecedented erotic energy and eruptions of transgressive and domestic excess into areas of deep myth and shamanistic performance. It is a poetry of her world and of our worlds as well, the gift of a supremely intelligent and relentlessly exuberant mind, situated somewhere between bliss and nightmare. That she has now chosen to live among us is a still further cause for celebration." --Jerome Rothenberg

Collection of poems by the dynamic poet Arai Takako, with English translations by Jeffrey Angles,... more Collection of poems by the dynamic poet Arai Takako, with English translations by Jeffrey Angles, Sawako Nakayasu, and You Nakai.

From Arai's introduction to the collection:

Soul Dance is an anthology that pursues the living form of words – an anthology that uses the voice as the bones of poetry, rhythm as its joints, and meaning and notation as its flesh and skin.

The vacant lot is the place of poetry. I was born and raised in Kiryū City in Gunma Prefecture, a town well known in Japan for the production of textiles. For decades, however, Kiryū has been suffering from a chronic case of hard economic times. A lack of business and continuing economic trouble are forcing the factories that once did so much weaving and spinning to disappear, thus leaving nothing for the future. When I stood in the remains of the old factories that had been sold on the auction block, I realized that if I were to stage my own, individual act of resistance to this empty dead-end of a hometown, it would be by making the spirit of language dance.

Later, I had the chance to travel to Belgrade and New York. There, once again, I encountered vacant lots, but those lots were different from those I had encountered at home—they were the empty spots left after explosions destroyed the enormous buildings that had once stood there. After the buildings were demolished, the rubble was cleaned up in almost no time at all, leaving conspicuously empty plots of land. These empty lots had been stripped so bare that not even a shadow remained. Still, I could not help but see them are profoundly poetic places that send us an earnest message about this moment we call “the present.”

Edited Books by Jeffrey Angles

This volume contains critical articles and new translations of one of Japan's most prominent writ... more This volume contains critical articles and new translations of one of Japan's most prominent writers, the feminist poet Itō Hiromi. This volume contains articles by Ueno Chizuko, Joanne Quimby, Jeffrey Angles, and Kyōko Ōmori, as well as new translations by Sawako Nakayasu, Jeffrey Angles, and even Itō Hiromi herself.

Although frequently misunderstood as a homogenous nation, Japan is a land of tremendous linguisti... more Although frequently misunderstood as a homogenous nation, Japan is a land of tremendous linguistic, geographical, and cultural diversity. This collection, which brings together short stories and essays about various places in Japan, features some of that diversity. For instance, Hino Keizō leads the reader through Tokyo's mazes in "Jacob's Tokyo Ladder." Nakagami Kenji explores the ghostly, mythology-laden backwoods of Kumano. Atōa Takashi takes us to Kyoto to follow the mystery of a pair of shoes and discover the death of a stranger.

Contributors include Hino Keizō, Maruya Saiichi, Inoue Yasushi, Oda Sakunosuke, Miyamoto Teru, Tada Chimako, Atōda Takashi, Nakagami Kenji, Mizukami Tsutomu, Kawabata Yasunari, Takahashi Mutsuo, and Shima Tsuyoshi.

Papers by Jeffrey Angles

As the field of translation studies has developed, translators and translation scholars have beco... more As the field of translation studies has developed, translators and translation scholars have become more aware of the unacknowledged ideologies inherent both in texts themselves and in the mechanisms that affect their circulation. This book both analyses the translation of queerness and applies queer thought to issues of translation. It sheds light on the manner in which heteronormative societies influence the selection, reading and translation of texts and pays attention to the means by which such heterosexism might be subverted. It considers the ways in which queerness can be repressed, ignored or made invisible in translation, and shows how translations might expose or underline the queerness – or the homophobic implications – of a given text. Balancing the theoretical with the practical, this book investigates what is culturally at stake when particular texts are translated from one culture to another, raising the question of the relationship between translation, colonialism and globalization. It also takes the insights derived from intercultural translation studies and applies them to other fields of cultural criticism. The first multi-focus, in-depth study on translating queer, translating queerly and queering translation, this book will be of interest to scholars working in the fields of gender and sexuality, queer theory and queer studies, literature, film studies and translation studies.

These Things Here and Now: Poetic Responses to the March 11, 2011 Disasters, 2016

From Arai's introduction to the collection:

Soul Dance is an anthology that pursues the living form of words – an anthology that uses the voice as the bones of poetry, rhythm as its joints, and meaning and notation as its flesh and skin.

Manoa, 2017

家と私 My Home and I I must have been in my late teenage years when I first watched the Italian dire... more 家と私 My Home and I I must have been in my late teenage years when I first watched the Italian director Vittorio De Sica’s moving film Il tetto (The Roof). The story takes place soon after World War Two in Rome. A poor, young couple gets married, but because they both live in small places with many other family members, they find themselves without any space of their own. They come up with a plan. They decide to construct an illegal residence in the vacant land next to the railway tracks—land that probably belongs to the government. Their friends and brothers hear about the plan and decide to pitch in. In the course of a single night, they build walls, hang a door, and construct a roof. The finished house (perhaps the word shack might be more fitting) is just large enough to house the couple and the baby they’re expecting. As I watched the film, I shared the joy of the ecstatic young couple looking at their new home. When I was in elementary school, every time I picked up a pencil and...

This book chapters explores the writing of three of Japan's most important and active poe... more This book chapters explores the writing of three of Japan's most important and active poets--Wagō Ryōichi, Takahashi Mutsuo, and Arai Takako--and the poetry that they wrote in response to the Fukushima meltdown in 2011. "Poetry in an Era of Nuclear Power: Three Poetic Responses to Fukushima," Fukushima and the Arts: Negotiating Nuclear Disaster, ed. Barbara Geilhorn and Kristina Iwata-Weickgenannt (NY: Routledge, 2016) 144-61.

Published on the fifth anniversary of the March 11, 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima meltd... more Published on the fifth anniversary of the March 11, 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima meltdown, this book explores the ways that many of Japan's most important poets have written about and represented the disasters in their work. This book contains a study of the themes, functions, and issues in that literature as well as copious translations of the original poetry. "In a time that for many of us in Tokyo and beyond feels far removed from the events of March 11, 2011, when we are not sure how to retain and respect those moments and their aftermath, this collection does exactly that. Jeffrey Angles' smart, useful introduction and the poems in this collection help us find a language of grace, dignity and poignancy, not only to look back but also to look forward." --David H. Slater

This chapter examines the wave of translations of Western queer literary fiction into Japanese in... more This chapter examines the wave of translations of Western queer literary fiction into Japanese in the 1990s and its effects on the Japanese reading world. Although the translators hoped to teach Japan about gay life in the West, their translations often subtly reconfigure representations of same-sex desire to match expectations found in Japan. Nonetheless, these translations drew a significant response, not just from gay male critics interested in questions of queer self-representation, but from female fans of manga as well. This book chapters examines several key translations from the 1990s boom of translations of Western gay literature and examines reactions from both gay men and the wider reading public.

言葉（谷川俊太郎）不死の島（多和田葉子）おまじない（重松清）夜泣き帽子（小川洋子）神様２０１１（川上弘美）三月の毛糸（川上未映子）ルル（いしいしんじ）一年後（Ｊ．Ｄ．マクラッチー）... more 言葉（谷川俊太郎）不死の島（多和田葉子）おまじない（重松清）夜泣き帽子（小川洋子）神様２０１１（川上弘美）三月の毛糸（川上未映子）ルル（いしいしんじ）一年後（Ｊ．Ｄ．マクラッチー）美しい祖母の聖書（池澤夏樹）ピース（角田光代）十六年後に泊まる（古川日出男）箱のはなし（明川哲也）漁師の小舟で見た夢（バリー・ユアグロー）日和山（佐伯一麦）ＲＩＤＥＯＮＴＡＩＭＥ（阿部和重）ユーカリの小さな葉（村上龍）惨事のあと、惨事のまえ（デイヴィッド・ピース）

"Collection of poems by the dynamic poet Arai Takako, with English translations by Jeffrey A... more "Collection of poems by the dynamic poet Arai Takako, with English translations by Jeffrey Angles, Sawako Nakayasu, and You Nakai. From Arai's introduction to the collection: Soul Dance is an anthology that pursues the living form of words – an anthology that uses the voice as the bones of poetry, rhythm as its joints, and meaning and notation as its flesh and skin. The vacant lot is the place of poetry. I was born and raised in Kiryū City in Gunma Prefecture, a town well known in Japan for the production of textiles. For decades, however, Kiryū has been suffering from a chronic case of hard economic times. A lack of business and continuing economic trouble are forcing the factories that once did so much weaving and spinning to disappear, thus leaving nothing for the future. When I stood in the remains of the old factories that had been sold on the auction block, I realized that if I were to stage my own, individual act of resistance to this empty dead-end of a hometown, it would be by making the spirit of language dance. Later, I had the chance to travel to Belgrade and New York. There, once again, I encountered vacant lots, but those lots were different from those I had encountered at home—they were the empty spots left after explosions destroyed the enormous buildings that had once stood there. After the buildings were demolished, the rubble was cleaned up in almost no time at all, leaving conspicuously empty plots of land. These empty lots had been stripped so bare that not even a shadow remained. Still, I could not help but see them are profoundly poetic places that send us an earnest message about this moment we call “the present.”"

Sirena Poesia Arte Y Critica, 2006

Wasafiri, 2020

This poem was written a few years after the nuclear accident at Fukushima, and it describes the o... more This poem was written a few years after the nuclear accident at Fukushima, and it describes the ongoing clean-up efforts, as well as the uncertainty and anxiety of the local population.

Wasafiri, 2020

This overtly erotic and often grotesque poem comes from Itō Hiromi's book Coyote Song, in which a... more This overtly erotic and often grotesque poem comes from Itō Hiromi's book Coyote Song, in which all of the poems are about coyotes. Many reflect her experiences from the time around the time she moved from her native Japan to California.