What does this research mean for the field?

In the context of the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake, literary narratives facilitate cultural trauma claim-making and meaning reconstruction through indirect representation and embodied practice, enabling the formation of a dynamic 'post-Kobe' identity. Novelty: ClaimNovelty.INCREMENTAL. Consensus alignment: ConsensusAlignment.NEUTRAL.

What question did this study set out to answer?

To examine how literary narrative participates in the cultural construction of trauma following the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake, expanding cultural trauma theory into East Asian contexts.

September 5, 2026Humanities and Social Sciences CommunicationsOpen Access

Disaster, diaspora, and the construction of post-Kobe subjectivity: a cultural trauma narrative study of Murakami Haruki’s after the quake

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YZYujiao Zhao

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Overview

Narrative analysis reveals how literary mediation frames disaster trauma in Murakami's After the Quake, indicating that indirect narrative and embodied practice reconstruct collective identity.

Key Points

To examine how literary narrative participates in the cultural construction of trauma following the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake, expanding cultural trauma theory into East Asian contexts.
Applied Jeffrey Alexander's cultural trauma claim-making model, expanding it with dimensions of indirectness and pre-discursive embodiment.
Conducted systematic qualitative narrative analysis using Catherine Kohler Riessman's framework on Haruki Murakami's short story collection After the Quake (2000/2002).
Indirect narrative, characterized by the systematic avoidance of direct disaster depiction, functions as an active trauma claim-making strategy.
The earthquake triggered a threefold diaspora that simultaneously dismantled spatial, relational, and existential meaning structures.
Characters develop a resilient 'post-Kobe subject' identity through embodied action and narrative engagement, navigating rupture without permanent fragmentation.

Cite This Study

Yujiao Zhao (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a9bd3f16b95aff0620eb3da https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-026-08919-w

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September 5, 2026Humanities and Social Sciences CommunicationsOpen Access

Disaster, diaspora, and the construction of post-Kobe subjectivity: a cultural trauma narrative study of Murakami Haruki’s after the quake

View Full Paper

Ask AI

Bookmark

Authors

YZYujiao Zhao

Discussion

Member takes

Overview

Narrative analysis reveals how literary mediation frames disaster trauma in Murakami's After the Quake, indicating that indirect narrative and embodied practice reconstruct collective identity.

Key Points

To examine how literary narrative participates in the cultural construction of trauma following the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake, expanding cultural trauma theory into East Asian contexts.
Applied Jeffrey Alexander's cultural trauma claim-making model, expanding it with dimensions of indirectness and pre-discursive embodiment.
Conducted systematic qualitative narrative analysis using Catherine Kohler Riessman's framework on Haruki Murakami's short story collection After the Quake (2000/2002).
Indirect narrative, characterized by the systematic avoidance of direct disaster depiction, functions as an active trauma claim-making strategy.
The earthquake triggered a threefold diaspora that simultaneously dismantled spatial, relational, and existential meaning structures.
Characters develop a resilient 'post-Kobe subject' identity through embodied action and narrative engagement, navigating rupture without permanent fragmentation.

Cite This Study

Yujiao Zhao (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a9bd3f16b95aff0620eb3da https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-026-08919-w

View Full Paper

Ask AI

Bookmark