Professor and/or Idler: A Soseki only for the School of Letters

Abstract

In this article, I focus on some of Soseki's famous disciples, such as Abe Nōsei (1883-1966) and Watsuji Tetsurō (1889-1960), who graduated from the School of Letters of Tokyo Imperial University and became professors. They were referred to pejoratively as “representatives of a ‘Soseki culture'” by Tosaka Jun, who went on to point out that this “Soseki culture” was already a phenomenon that was not necessarily related to the cultural tradition of Soseki himself. Members of the intellectual elite, these disciples started out as anti-authoritarian youth, or “educated idlers” who dared to abandon worldly success. Eventually, however, some won positions at Imperial universities, and came to be seen as guardians of the cultural status quo, or intellectuals who sided with the establishment. Furthermore, they were also disparaged as dilettantes who were neither authoritative scholars nor original writers. This paper shows what the discourse surrounding these “representatives of Soseki culture” reveals about modern Japanese views on universities, literature, journalism, and writers.