Creolizing Kurosawa: Malcochon, Japonisme, and the Relational Aesthetics of Global Modernism

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dc.abstract.enThis article reframes global modernism through Édouard Glissant’s relational poetics, using Derek Walcott’s play Malcochon (1959) as a case study in transmedial and transcultural exchange. Written as a deliberate imitation of Akira Kurosawa’s film Rashomon (1950), Malcochon draws on the conventions of Japanese cinema, Noh and Kabuki theatre, Euro-American modernist poetics, and Caribbean folk performance. In tracing the diverse influences that animate the play, the article expands on Shu-mei Shih’s argument that East–West modernist exchange was often mediated through Japan, repositioning her triangular model within a broader, multidirectional, transhistorical web of relations rooted in Glissant’s concept of totalité-monde. This remodelling involves demonstrating how a seemingly unrelated cultural geography – the Caribbean – serves as the fourth of many further nodes in a global, recursive network. Walcott’s play ultimately emerges as an emblem of relationality, a concept reconceived for global modernism not only as a spatial or diagnostic heuristic, but as a generative compositional force.
dc.affiliationEnglish Studies
dc.contributor.authorHerbertson, Gavin
dc.date.access2025-11-06
dc.date.accessioned2025-11-14T12:32:53Z
dc.date.available2025-11-14T12:32:53Z
dc.date.created2025-11-01
dc.date.issued2025-11-06
dc.description.abstract<jats:p>This article reframes global modernism through Édouard Glissant's relational poetics, using Derek Walcott's play Malcochon (1959) as a case study in transmedial and transcultural exchange. Written as a deliberate imitation of Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon (1950), Malcochon draws on the conventions of Japanese cinema, Noh and Kabuki theatre, Euro-American modernist poetics, and Caribbean folk performance. In tracing the diverse influences that animate the play, the article expands on Shu-mei Shih's argument that East–West modernist exchange was often mediated through Japan, repositioning her triangular model within a broader, multidirectional, transhistorical web of relations rooted in Glissant's concept of totalité-monde. This remodelling involves demonstrating how a seemingly unrelated cultural geography – the Caribbean – serves as the fourth of many further nodes in a global, recursive network. Walcott's play ultimately emerges as an emblem of relationality, a concept reconceived for global modernism not only as a spatial or diagnostic heuristic, but as a generative compositional force.</jats:p>
dc.description.accesstimeat_publication
dc.description.issue2-3
dc.description.physical169-188
dc.description.sdgNoSDGsAreRelevantForThisPublication
dc.description.versionfinal_published
dc.description.volume20
dc.identifier.doi10.3366/mod.2025.0455
dc.identifier.eissn1753-8629
dc.identifier.issn2041-1022
dc.identifier.urihttps://share.swps.edu.pl/handle/swps/1998
dc.identifier.weblinkhttps://www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.3366/mod.2025.0455
dc.languageen
dc.pbn.affiliationliteraturoznawstwo
dc.rightsCC-BY-NC-ND
dc.rights.questionYes_rights
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
dc.share.articleOTHER
dc.subject.enDerek Walcott
dc.subject.enÉdouard Glissant
dc.subject.enRashomon
dc.subject.entotalité-monde
dc.subject.enCaribbean drama
dc.swps.sciencecloudnosend
dc.titleCreolizing Kurosawa: Malcochon, Japonisme, and the Relational Aesthetics of Global Modernism
dc.title.journalModernist Cultures
dc.typeJournalArticle
dspace.entity.typeArticle