Naoki Kambe explores the masculinist rhetoric of Japanese male intellectuals’ reactions to the 2011 earthquake. Through an analysis of several responses by Japanese male intellectuals and writers, Kambe explores how, in times of disaster, these intellectuals and writers express the cultural and masculine ideals of akirame, or resignation—which is linked to mujō, or the impermanence of nature—and of nostalgia for the remote past. In doing so, Kambe makes observations about the connections between masculinity and nation in the Japanese context.
DOI: doi.org/10.5282/rcc/7978