The Cultural Catch
Japanese Whaling Fiction and the Gender(ed) Politics of Nostalgia
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19225815 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kristina Iwata-Weickgenannt (0009-0005-4715-1388, Nagoya University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 24 |
| Publication date | 2026-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Japan focus (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1557-4660 • E-ISSN: 1557-4660 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/apj.2026.10050 |
| OpenAlex | W7162426192 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 11 |
This article reads the post-moratorium boom in historical whaling fiction against shifting debates over the legitimacy of Japanese whaling. Taking Itō Jun’s Kyogei no umi (2013) as example, I draw on critical heritage studies and Svetlana Boym’s theory of nostalgia to show how the novel reconstructs Edo-period whaling as a morally coherent, patriarchal community built on self-sacrifice and masculine heroism. In doing so, the novel aligns with cultural-nationalist framings of whaling, enhancing its symbolic value as a marker of Japanese identity. The article thus shows how such narratives participate in the discursive work that sustains whaling in contemporary Japan
Boom · Legitimacy · Narrative · Politics · Value (mathematics) · Whaling · Work (physics) · Ecocriticism and Environmental Literature · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Japanese History and Culture
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |