(born May 9, 1971) is a

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

cultural critic A cultural critic is a critic of a given culture, usually as a whole. Cultural criticism has significant overlap with social and cultural theory. While such criticism is simply part of the self-consciousness of the culture, the social positions of ...

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire to ...

, and

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

. He is the co-founder and former director of Genron, an independent institute in Tokyo, Japan.

Biography

Azuma was born in

Mitaka, Tokyo 260px, Inokashira Park in Mitaka is a city in the western portion of Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 190,403, and a population density of 12,000 persons per km². The total area of the city was . Geography Mit ...

. Azuma received his PhD in Culture and Representation from the

University of Tokyo , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...

in 1999 and became a professor at the

International University of Japan The is a private university located in Minamiuonuma city in Niigata Prefecture, Japan. IUJ is the first graduate university in Japan, not offering undergraduate degrees, and one of the few Japanese universities which offers all courses in En ...

in 2003. He was an Executive Research Fellow and Professor at the

Center for Global Communications The is a private university located in Minamiuonuma city in Niigata Prefecture, Japan. IUJ is the first graduate university in Japan, not offering undergraduate degrees, and one of the few Japanese universities which offers all courses in En ...

(GLOCOM) and a Research Fellow at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

's Japan Center. Since 2006, he has been working at the Center for Study of World Civilizations at the

Tokyo Institute of Technology is a national research university located in Greater Tokyo Area, Japan. Tokyo Tech is the largest institution for higher education in Japan dedicated to science and technology, one of first five Designated National University and selected as ...

. Azuma is married to the writer and poet Hoshio Sanae, and they have one child together. His father-in-law is the translator, novelist, and occasional critic Kotaka Nobumitsu.

Work

Hiroki Azuma is one of the most influential young

literary critics Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis, philosophical discussion of literature' ...

in Japan, focusing on literature and on the idea of individual liberty. He began writing inspired by the work of

Kojin Karatani is a Japanese philosopher and literary critic. Biography Karatani entered the University of Tokyo in 1960, where he joined the radical Marxist Communist League, better known as "The Bund," and participated in the massive 1960 Anpo protests aga ...

and

Akira Asada is a Japanese postmodern critic and curator, whose interests include contemporary arts, the history of social thought, and economic philosophy. He is currently the Dean of the Graduate School at the Kyoto University of Art and Design. Until Mar ...

. He is an associate of

Takashi Murakami is a Japanese contemporary artist. He works in fine arts media (such as painting and sculpture) as well as commercial (such as fashion, merchandise, and animation) and is known for blurring the line between high and low arts as well as co ae ...

and the

Superflat Superflat is a postmodern art movement, founded by the artist Takashi Murakami, which is influenced by manga and anime. However, superflat doesn't have an explicit definition because Takashi Murakami does not want to limit the movement, but rather ...

movement. His publishing debut was "

Solzhenitsyn Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian novelist. One of the most famous Soviet dissidents, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of communism and helped to raise global awareness of political repress ...

Essay" in 1993. Azuma handed the work directly to Karatani during his lecture series at

Hosei University is a private university based in Tokyo, Japan. The university originated in a school of law, Tōkyō Hōgakusha (, i.e. Tokyo association of law), established in 1880, and the following year renamed Tōkyō Hōgakkō (, i.e. Tokyo school of law ...

which Azuma was

auditing An audit is an "independent examination of financial information of any entity, whether profit oriented or not, irrespective of its size or legal form when such an examination is conducted with a view to express an opinion thereon.” Auditing ...

. Azuma launched his career as a literary critic in 1993 with a postmodern style influenced by leading Japanese critics

and

. In the late 1990s, Azuma began examining various pop phenomena, especially the emerging

otaku is a Japanese word that describes people with consuming interests, particularly in anime, manga, video games, or computers. Its contemporary use originated with a 1983 essay by Akio Nakamori in ''Manga Burikko''. may be used as a pejorativ ...

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

culture, and became widely known as an advocate of the thoughts of a new generation of Japanese. He is interested in the transformation of the Japanese literary imagination under its current “otaku-ization.” Azuma has published seven books, including ''Sonzaironteki, Yubinteki'' (''Ontological, Postal'') in 1998, which focuses on

Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida; See also . 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in numerous texts, and which was developed t ...

's oscillation between literature and philosophy. This work won the Suntory Literary Prize in 2000 and made Azuma the youngest writer to ever win that prize. Akira Asada stated that it is one of the best books written in the 90s; however, Hiroo Yamagata pointed out that the book is based on the misunderstanding of Gödel's incompleteness theorem. He also wrote ''Dobutsuka-suru Postmodern'' (''Animalizing Postmodernity'') (translated as ''Otaku: Japan's Database Animals'' in 2001), which analyzes Japanese pop culture through a postmodern lens. He has also set up a

non-profit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

to encourage cutting-edge critics who might be shut out of the existing publishing world.

Works

* Azuma, Hiroki. ''存在論的、郵便的－ジャック・デリダについて'' * Azuma, Hiroki. ''郵便的不安達'' * Azuma, Hiroki. ''不過視なものの世界'' * Azuma, Hiroki. ''動物化するポストモダン―オタクから見た日本社会'' * Azuma, Hiroki. ''ゲーム的リアリズムの誕生―動物化するポストモダン2'' * Azuma, Hiroki. ''文学環境論集―東浩紀コレクションL'' * Azuma, Hiroki. ''情報環境論集―東浩紀コレクションS'' * Azuma, Hiroki. ''批評の精神分析―東浩紀コレクションD'' * Azuma, Hiroki. ''郵便的不安たちβ'' * Azuma, Hiroki. ''サイバースペースはなぜそう呼ばれるか'' * Azuma, Hiroki. ''一般意志2.0―ルソー、フロイト、グーグル'' * Azuma, Hiroki. ''セカイからもっと近くに―現実から切り離された文学の諸問題'' * Azuma, Hiroki. ''弱いつながり―検索ワードを探す旅'' * Azuma, Hiroki. ''ゲンロン0―観光客の哲学'' * Azuma, Hiroki. ''ゆるく考える'' * Azuma, Hiroki. ''テーマパーク化する地球'' *Azuma, Hiroki. ''Otaku: Japan's Database Animals.'' Minneapolis
University of Minnesota Press
2009. * Azuma, Hiroki. (2007) "The Animalization of Otaku Culture"

Mechademia ''Mechademia: Second Arc'' is a biannual (formerly annual) peer-reviewed academic journal in English about Japanese popular culture products and fan practices. It is published by the University of Minnesota Press and the editor-in-chief is French ...

2 175–188.

References

J'Lit , Authors : Hiroki Azuma , Books from Japan

External links

Hiroki Azuma's homepage and blog
*

** ttps://web.archive.org/web/20090122070446/http://www.hirokiazuma.com/en/texts/superflat_en1.html "Superflat Japanese Postmodernity"
"Anime, or something like it:

Neon Genesis Evangelion , also known simply as ''Evangelion'' or ''Eva'', is a Japanese mecha anime television series produced by Gainax and animated by Tatsunoko, directed by Hideaki Anno and broadcast on TV Tokyo from October 1995 to March 1996. ''Evangelion' ...

"
>Evangelion<<. Interview with Azuma Hiroki"">"Towards a cartography of Japanese anime: Anno Hideaki's >>Evangelion<<. Interview with Azuma Hiroki"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Azuma, Hiroki 1971 births Anime and manga critics Living people Japanese philosophers Japanese novelists People from Mitaka, Tokyo Tokyo Institute of Technology faculty Waseda University faculty University of Tokyo faculty University of Tokyo alumni Yukio Mishima Prize winners Cultural critics 21st-century philosophers Japanese magazine editors