Duke University Press – 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