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- Title
Post-National Cool: William Gibson's Japan.
- Authors
Paulk, Charles
- Abstract
This article reconsiders the role of Japan in the cyberpunk fiction of William Gibson. From his early short stories through the millennial BRIDGE TRILOGY, Gibson has long portrayed Japan as the cradle of modern futurity. Many critics have traced this to so-called "techno-orientalism" and the anti-Japanese sentiment pervasive in the West during Japan's late-twentieth-century boom years. This article seeks to address the insufficiencies of such readings and offers an alternative interpretation of Gibson's Japan, linking it to the author's affinity for Dada, remix culture, and the writings of Fredric Jameson. The final section considers Gibson's impact on Japan's post-bubble emergence as a pop-cultural exporter—particularly the growing global ubiquity of manga and anime—and the question of the nation's continued relevance in the twenty-first century.
- Subjects
JAPAN; GIBSON, William, 1948-; LITERARY criticism; SCIENCE fiction; CYBERPUNK fiction; JAPAN in literature; JAPANESE civilization
- Publication
Science Fiction Studies, 2011, Vol 38, Issue 3, p478
- ISSN
0091-7729
- Publication type
Literary Criticism
- DOI
10.5621/sciefictstud.38.3.0478