taidan histories and mondo origins?

[Michael McCaskey]

It subsequently occurred to me that the taidan form probably goes back to the mondo form, as you'll already know.

The mondo q&a form in Japan goes back at least as far as to Zen mondo texts, such as 
Muso Soseki's （１２７５-１３５１）Muchu mondo shu 夢窓師答 夢中問答集.

It may be that the taidan form is a modern derivation, coming out of the mondo form.

There's an article by Maruyama Masao, in which he, rightly or wrongly, traced the origins of the mondo form in modern times back to a work by Nakae Chomin:

"日本思想史における問答体の系譜―中江兆民『三酔人経綸問答』の位置づけ":
This article by Maruyama is supposed to be included in Maruyama's book Chusei to hangyaku:

Author Maruyama, Masao, 1914-  丸山真男
Title Chūsei to hangyaku : tenkeiki Nihon no seishinshiteki isō / Maruyama Masao. 忠誠と反逆 : 転形期日本の精神史的位相 / 丸山眞男. 
Publisher Tōkyō : Chikuma Shobō, 1992. 東京 : 筑摩書房, 1992. 
Format Book 
Library UCB UCLA SRLF UCSD UCI 
Chūsei to hangyaku : tenkeiki Nihon no seishinshiteki isō / Maruyama Masao. 忠誠と反逆 : 転形期日本の精神史的位相 / 丸山眞男. Edition Shohan. 初版. Publisher Tōkyō : Chikuma Shobō, 1992. 東京 : 筑摩書房, 1992. Description 401 p. ; 22 cm. Note Includes bibliographical references. LCCN 92235385 ISBN 4480855637
 
There's also a book-length study of the Nakae mondo work. You may already have it checked out via ILL:

中江兆民の世界 : 「三酔人 経綸問答」を読む /Nakae Chōmin no sekai : "San suijin keirin mondō" o yomu
by 木下順二, 江藤文夫編 ; [山本安英の会編]. 木下順二, 江藤文夫, Junji Kinoshita; Fumio Etō; Yamamoto Yasue no Kai.
Publisher: 筑摩書房, Tōkyō : Chikuma Shobō, 1977. OCLC: 23312614
UC Berkeley Libraries 
East Asian 4624.5337 Checked Out CHECKED OUT; DUE: 11/05/08 

Apologies if any of this happens to recapitulate information already available from elsewhere.

Best Wishes,
Michael McCaskey

PS
Thank you very much for the Murakami references, which are very useful for me.


----- Original Message -----
From: anne mcknight <annekmcknight at gmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, June 4, 2008 10:48 pm
Subject: re: taidan histories

> Thanks, everyone, for the suggestions on *taidan* reading.
> 
> I guess in the realm of *sokkibun*, Fukuzawa would be another 
> example, and
> he does weigh in on current affairs--insofar as tall tales about 
> the high
> seas and evading *bakumatsu* death threats constitute current affairs.
> 
> Miyoshi is also an interesting thought; I will have to follow up 
> on that.
> 
> And Murakami...where to begin. After having read his 900-page 
> magnum opus on
> fascist survivalists in the fin-de-si?cle Arctic, I think his TV 
> show might
> make me explode. But I do think he is a key figure in recent
> *taidan*history, as he certainly has his finger on the pulse of all
> the latest
> *3-men kiji* and *shakai* *mondai*. Not to mention his place in film
> history, given that Miike's *Audition* was based on one of his 
> novels, to
> cite just one link.
> 
> Anne
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Assistant Professor, East Asian Languages & Cultures (EALC)
> Taper Hall, 356P
> University of Southern California
> 3501 Trousdale Parkway
> Los Angeles, California 90089-0357  USA
> tel: 213-740-3706
> fax: 213-740-9295
> mcknight at usc.edu
> 
> 
> On 4-Jun-08, at 2:52 PM, Mark Anderson wrote:
> 
> Dear Anne,
> I've read a taidan on Ozaki Koyo's Gold Demon (Konjiki yasha) in 
> which Mori
> Ogai and Koyo himself participated that dates from 1898 or 1899. 
> So the
> genre goes at least that far back. They were discussing the novel in
> relation to female gender roles, images of capitalism in world 
> literature,Nietzsche, and contemporary German trends toward 
> connecting morality and
> biology. They weren't commenting on public affairs per se, though, 
> as your
> post-war example discusses.
> 
> As for the technology used in recording or transcribing the 
> discussion, I
> imagine sokkibun shorthand is the method most likely to have been used
> though I have no hard evidence for this and have never seen a 
> discussion of
> the matter. As you will recall, sokkibun had been widely 
> institutionalizedin literary, legal, and journalistic contexts by 
> then. Rimbara, Miller, and
> Vincent have all written on sokkibun in relation to late 
> nineteenth century
> Japanese literature.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Mark Anderson
> 
> Anne McKnight wrote:
> Good morning,
> 
> I'm wondering if anyone has ever read any good histories or 
> sketches of the
> genre of the taidan. I'm sure many of you have your favorite taidan
> "highlights and lowlifes," as I do. And I read a piece a while 
> back about
> Et? Jun and ?e Kenzabur? as taidan pioneers, in the sense of 
> weighing in, as
> artistes, on public events and current affairs, especially vis-a-vis
> cultural nationalism and what postwar literature should be or do. 
> It would
> probably be too much to ask for references that describe the use of
> recording and documenting technologies (e.g. film and tape), their 
> impact on
> print culture and the shapes it takes (such as taidans), but if 
> anything of
> that general angle comes to mind, I'd be especially interested in 
> hearingabout it.
> 
> Thanks for any leads!
> 
> Anne
>