Poetics and Justice in America, Japan, and Taiwan

If this book were half as amazing it would still be remarkable. the theorizing offers an original and important take on Badiou; the readings of poems are precise and the scope of reference gorgeously transcultural, with the focus on the U.S., Japan, and Taiwan; and the treatment of politics plausible and often compelling, How can one go wrong with a book that announces early on that the author learned to read the New York poets through the intertextual strategies of classical Japanese work?

-- Charles F. Altieri, University of California, Berkeley

Poetics and Justice is a fascinating study of the political importance of contemporary American, Japanese, and Taiwanese poetry that is not openly political. Its focus on intertextuality as a function of political affiliation instead of poststructuralist or postmodern diffusion of signification leads to a diverse range of insights and new understandings of engaged poetry. Adapting French philosopher Alain Badiou's evental theory to literary and cultural studies, and engaging critical materialist and ecological issues of human-nonhuman relations and ontologies, Poetics and Justice skillfully situates poetry as challenging government and media obfuscation of scientific findings. This book will appeal to scholars of American, Japanese, and Taiwanese literature, as well as ecocriticism, comparative literature, and related fields.

-- Karen L. Thornber, Professor of Comparative Literature, Harvard Univer