Metaphorical Circuit argues that the division of knowledge between literature and science in the modern university produced a necessity to choose that became a central, animating tension for Japanese intellectuals in the early 20th century. Each chapter begins with a point in an author's work where mathematical representation becomes an issue in negotiating the boundary, and follows the analysis to a wall, or a point of indeterminacy, that leaves the author again with a heterogeneous field. The book offers substantial, original readings of a series of major figures such as Natsume Soseki,...