Synopses & Reviews
This volume has a dual purpose. As a study of Japanese literature, it aims to define the state of Japanese literary studies in the field of womens writing and to point to directions for future research and inquiry. As a study of womens writing, it presents cross-cultural interpretations of Japanese material of relevance to contemporary work in gender studies and comparative literature. The essays demonstrate various critical approaches to the tradition of Japanese womens writing—from a consideration of theoretical issues of gendered writing in classical and modern literature to a consideration of the themes and styles of a number of important contemporary writers.
Feminist literary critics have generally defined womens discursive practice in terms of four major gender-related contexts: literary-historical, biological, experiential, and cultural. Accordingly, the thirteen essays in the volume are divided into four parts. Part I locates women writers within Japanese literary history; Part II shows ways in which modern women writers have “written the body” in Japan; Part III gives examples of tropes and genres used to write about female experience; and Part IV depicts how gender intersects with other social and cultural contexts in Japanese womens writing.
Synopsis
A study of the work and position of female writers in Japanese literature.
Synopsis
This volume has a dual purpose. As a study of Japanese literature, it aims to define the state of Japanese literary studies in the field of women's writing and to point to directions for future research and inquiry. As a study of women's writing, it presents cross-cultural interpretations of Japanese material of relevance to contemporary work in gender studies and comparative literature. The essays demonstrate various critical approaches to the tradition of Japanese women's writing - from a consideration of theoretical issues of gendered writing in classical and modern literature to a consideration of the themes and styles of a number of important contemporary writers. It attempts to recover a feminine tradition that had been erased in the predominant focus on male writing but also reflects recent feminist concerns with language, with representations of the female body as sites of resistance, and with aspects of ethnicity and class.
Synopsis
'A study of the work and position of female authors in Japanese literature, reflecting concerns with ethnicity, class, feminine language, representations of the body, and the development of a feminine tradition.\n
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Synopsis
This volume has a dual purpose. It aims to define the state of Japanese literary studies in the field of women's writing and to present cross-cultural interpretations of Japanese material of relevance to contemporary work in gender studies and comparative literature.
About the Author
Paul Gordon Schalow is Associate Professor of Japanese Literature at Rutgers University. He is the translator of Ihara Saikaku's The Great Mirror of Male Love (Stanford, 1990). Janet A. Walker is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Rutgers University. She is the author of The Japanese Novel of the Meiji Period and the Ideal of Individualism.
Table of Contents
Preface; Contributors; Introduction Paul Gordon Schalow and Janet A. Walker; Part I. Situating the Woman Writer in Japanese Literature: 1. Special address: without beginning, without end Oba Minako; 2. The Tosa Diary: in the interstices of gender and criticism Lynne K. Miyake; 3. The origins of the concept of 'women's literature' Joan E. Ericson; Part II. Narrating the Body: 4. The body in contemporary Japanese women's fiction Sharalyn Orbaugh; 5. Translation and reproduction in Enchi Fumiko's 'A Bond for Two Lifetimes - Gleanings' Doris G. Bargen; 6. The quest for jouissance in Takahashi Takako's texts Maryellen Toman Mori; Part III. Defining the Female Voice: 7. In pursuit of the Yamamba: the question of female resistance Meera Viswanathan; 8. Hayashi Kyoko and the gender of ground zero John Whittier Treat; 9. Becoming or (un)becoming: the female destiny reconsidered in Oba Minako's narratives Michiko Niikuni Wilson; Part IV. Locating 'Woman' in Culture: 10. In search of a lost paradise: the wandering woman in Hayashi Fumiko's Drifting Clouds Noriko Mizuta; 11. Text versus commentary: struggles of the cultural meanings of 'woman' Chieko M. Ariga; 12. Connaissance délicieuse, or the science of jealousy: Tsushima Yuko's 'The Chrysanthemum Beetle' Livia Monnet; 13. Power and gender in the narratives of Yamada Eimi Nina Cornyetz; Reference matter; Selected bibliography of Japanese women's writing Joan E. Ericson and Midori Y. McKeon; Index.