Japanese Counterculture: The Antiestablishment Art of Terayama Shuji

Terayama Shuji (1935-1983) was an avant-garde Japanese poet, dramatist, film director, and photographer known for his highly provocative art. In this inventive and revealing study, Steven C. Ridgely examines Terayama's life and art to show that a conventional notion of this artist does not do full justice to the meaning and importance of his wide-ranging, often playful body of work.

Ridgely places Terayama at the center of Japanese and global counterculture and discovers a larger story about the history of postwar Japanese art and culture. He sees Terayama as reflecting the most significant events of his day. Featuring close readings of Terayama's art, Ridgely demonstrates how patterns sidestep existing power structures across his oeuvre, never offering direct opposition but nevertheless making the opposition plain. And, he claims, Terayama's work always makes a broad call for seeking out or creating pockets of fiction--where we are made aware that things are not what they seemuand to use otherness in those spaces for a clearer view of reality.

Steven C. Ridgely is Assistant Professor of Japanese Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.