Synopses & Reviews
Over the past few decades, many young Japanese women have emerged as Japanandrsquo;s most enthusiastic andldquo;internationalists,andrdquo; investing in study or work abroad, or in romance with Western men as opportunities to circumvent what they consider their countryandrsquo;s oppressive corporate and family structures. Drawing on a rich supply of autobiographical narratives, as well as literary and cultural texts, Karen Kelsky situates this phenomenon against a backdrop of profound social change in Japan and
within an intricate network of larger global forces.
and#9;In exploring the promises, limitations, and contradictions of these andldquo;occidental longings,andrdquo; Women on the Verge exposes the racial and erotic politics of transnational mobility. Kelsky shows how female cosmopolitanism recontextualizes the well-known Western male romance with the Orient: Japanese women are now the agents, narrating their own desires for the andldquo;modernandrdquo; West in ways that seem to defy Japanese nationalism as well as long-standing relations of power not only between men and women but between Japan and the West. While transnational movement is not available to all Japanese women, Kelsky shows that the desire for the foreign permeates many Japanese womenandrsquo;s lives. She also reveals how this feminine allegiance to the Westandmdash;and particularly to white menandmdash;can impose its own unanticipated hegemonies of race, sexuality, and capital.
and#9;Combining ethnography and literary analysis, and bridging anthropology and cultural studies, Women on the Verge will also appeal to students and scholars of Japan studies, feminism, and global culture.
Review
andldquo;Kelsky insightfully treats desire as a complicated and contradictory complex, something inspired as much by pragmatic as erotic concerns. The narratives she offers are rich and impressive and her skills as a fieldworker as well as command of the ethnographic scene in Japan are striking. This is a compelling, engaging, and important work.andrdquo;andmdash;Anne Allison, author of Nightwork: Sexuality, Pleasure, and Corporate Masculinity in a Tokyo Hostess Club
Review
andldquo;Taking cover under her more innocuous theme of the recent internationalization of Japanese womenandrsquo;s lives and careers, Karen Kelsky bluntly asks one of the great taboo questions in Japanese studies: why do so many Japanese women, if given the chance, prefer white husbands over those of their own ethnicity? What are the historical and psychological reasons for a powerful attraction enshrined in popular culture since Madame Butterfly but until now never critically examined, certainly not from a modern feminist perspective? Kelskyandrsquo;s provocative answers to these questions make her Women on the Verge the first study we have of Japanandrsquo;s eroticization of the West, in a world already so full of books that would tell us how the West has eroticized Japan.andrdquo;andmdash;John Whittier Treat, Yale University
Synopsis
Explores issues of gender, race and national identity in Japan, by taking up for critical analysis an emergent national trend, in which some urban Japanese women turn to the West--through study abroad, work abroad, and romance with Westerners-- in order
About the Author
Karen Kelsky is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oregon.