(14 February 1900 - 18 May 1952) was a Japanese aesthetician,

film theorist Film theory is a set of scholarly approaches within the academic discipline of film or cinema studies that began in the 1920s by questioning the formal essential attributes of motion pictures; and that now provides conceptual frameworks for unde ...

librarian A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users. The role of the librarian has changed much over time, ...

, and

social activist Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good. Forms of activism range fro ...

Career

Born in

Hiroshima Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. Hiroshima Prefecture has a population of 2,811,410 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 8,479 km² (3,274 sq mi). Hiroshima Prefecture borders Okayama ...

, Nakai studied philosophy at

Kyoto University , mottoeng = Freedom of academic culture , established = , type = National university, Public (National) , endowment = ¥ 316 billion (2.4 1000000000 (number), billion USD) , faculty = 3,480 (Teaching Staff) , administrative_staff ...

, particularly

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed thr ...

under Yasukazu Fukuda. He started the

dōjinshi , also romanized as ', is the Japanese term for self-published print works, such as magazines, manga, and novels. Part of a wider category of '' doujin'' (self-published) works, ''doujinshi'' are often derivative of existing works and created ...

''Bi hihyō'' in 1930, which changed its name to ''Sekai bunka'' in 1935. He became a lecturer at Kyoto University while being active in left-wing social movements, protesting Japan's tilt towards

fascism Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy an ...

and promoting popular forms of culture through such concepts at the "logic of the committee." Nakai co-founded the popular culture tabloid '' Doyōbi'' (''Saturday'') in 1936. However, the magazine was discontinued in 1937 with his arrest for anti-fascist political activity under the

Peace Preservation Law The was a Japanese law enacted on April 22, 1925, with the aim of allowing the Special Higher Police to more effectively suppress socialists and communists. In addition to criminalizing forming an association with the aim of altering the ''kokuta ...

. Nakai also his university position as a result of the arrest. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he continued his political activism by teaching philosophy as part of the Hiroshima Culture Movement and by running for governor of

, only losing by a narrow margin.Leslie Pincus, "A Salon for the Soul: Nakai Masakazu and the Hiroshima Culture Movement," ''positions'' 10.1 (2002), pp. 173-194. He was appointed the first Vice Librarian (''fukukanchō'') of the

National Diet Library The is the national library of Japan and among the largest libraries in the world. It was established in 1948 for the purpose of assisting members of the in researching matters of public policy. The library is similar in purpose and scope to ...

in 1948.

Selected bibliography

* *

References

External links

Nakai Masakazu
at

Aozora Bunko Aozora Bunko (, literally the "Blue Sky Library", also known as the "Open Air Library") is a Japanese digital library. This online collection encompasses several thousands of works of Japanese-language fiction and non-fiction. These include out-o ...

(in Japanese) {{DEFAULTSORT:Nakai, Masakazu Japanese philosophers Film theorists 1900 births 1952 deaths Philosophers of art People from Hiroshima Prefecture Japanese activists Japanese anti-fascists Japanese politicians Japanese librarians Kyoto University alumni Kyoto University faculty 20th-century Japanese philosophers