Nuclear disaster and bubbles

The central focus of the chapter is the Fukushima nuclear accident and its aftermath. In the first section “Sign and Meaning,” Yoshimoto teases out the historical meanings of Fukushima by examining "3/11" as a sign and discusses how this sign, when juxtaposed with 9/11, can illuminate the dimensions of the Fukushima accident which may not be apparent initially. In “Rhetoric and Symbol,” Yoshimoto analyzes how the state and capital try to reinterpret the nuclear catastrophe as a severe and yet manageable accident posing no fundamental threat to the reality of everyday life. The final section, “The Prison House of Commodities,” attempts to explain the quick post-3/11 normalization by scrutinizing the roles of consumerism and mass media in governmentality and reproduction of the everyday in contemporary Japan.