A Fictional Commons

“Michael K. Bourdaghs's A Fictional Commons provides a strikingly new approach to thinking about the fiction and theories of Natsume Soseki as well as for thinking how literature as a practice gestures to something beyond the modern regime of private property. Literature, Bourdaghs demonstrates, is one of the sites where we imagine the return in a higher dimension of the commons, the gift, and primitive communism.” - Karatani Kojin, author of Isonomia and the Origins of Philosophy

“Both erudite and innovative, A Fictional Commons brilliantly demonstrates how Natsume Soseki, through his fiction and criticism, explored literature as a domain for imagining the alternatives to modern private property regime and the related conceptualization of modern personhood. It is a major contribution to Soseki studies and modern Japanese literary studies. It also joins broader debates over the value of literature in the twenty-first century—how literature may inspire creative modes of sharing that traverse national, regional, and other boundaries dividing our troubled present.” - Tomiko Yoda, Takashima Professor of Japanese Humanities, Harvard University

"As more and more people question the extremes of capitalism, Bourdaghs’ study of Soseki adds a fascinating lens for further examining other works of literature. . . . In A Fictional Commons, Bourdaghs reveals Soseki’s sharp mind, ever wrestling with the most important sociological issue of his time. Through this book, Bourdagh also reminds us that the role of literature is to rethink what is possible — and thereby literally rewrite the world." - Kris Kosaka, Japan Times

“[Bourdaghs] makes extensive use of Japanese and Western sources, both primary and secondary, drawing seamlessly on work in multiple languages. [A Fictional Commons] is extensively referenced and comes with an exhaustive list of bibliographic studies . . . which will be of immense help to both students and scholars interested in Soseki, and in Meiji- and Taisho-era Japanese literature more broadly.” - Gouranga Charan Pradhan, Japan Review

“Bourdaghs’s exploration of the question of property for Soseki is broad, trenchant, and productive, and it drew connections for me that I would not have otherwise imagined.” - Edward Mack, Journal of Japanese Studies

"This book is a gift from a Soseki-philiac to a reading commons brought to life by a singular novelist. Let A Fictional Commons not be an epitaph for the tried-and-true-but-threatened art of intense literary engagement with complex texts set within their entangling contexts." - Alan Tansman, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies