Forms of the Body in Contemporary Japanese Society, Literature, and Culture

Irina Holca is associate professor at the University of Tokyo.Carmen Sapunaru Tama? is associate professor at the University of Hyogo.

The body functions not only as a ground for the unique particularities of individual subjectivity, but also as a model of universality that mirrors the community and the society at large. Through this connection between the individual and the whole, the body thereby gives physical shape to the universal order and its microcosmos, while likewise serving in modern society as the political “field” through which the conflicts and contradictions between the two become visible. It is the nature of this “field” of body politics that Irina Holca and Carmen Sapunaru Tamas illuminate in their exploration of the varying representations of the body across contemporary Japanese literature, performance, and popular culture.

• Part I: The Performed BodyChapter One: A Japanese Fox in a Woman’s Body: Shifting Performances of Femininity in Kij Johnson’s Reworking of Konjaku MonogatariLuciana Cardi Chapter Two: Call Me a Dog. Feeling (Inugami) Possession in Contemporary Tokushima PrefectureAndrea De Antoni Chapter Three: Kabuki: Performance of Gendered BodiesGalia Todorova Gabrovska Chapter Four: Home Is Where Mother Is, and the Way to a Man’s Heart Goes through His Stomach: Bodies in the Kitchen (Yoshimoto Banana) Irina Holca Chapter Five: The Body as Canvas: Osaka Drag Queens from Kabuki to Lady GagaCarmen Sapunaru Tama? Part II: The De-formed BodyChapter Six: The Body in Motion in Buto: Passivity and Transformation in the FleshCaitlin Coker Chapter Seven: Senility and the Body: Care and Gender in Contemporary Japanese LiteratureShun Izutani Chapter Eight: The Cared for Dog and the Caring Dog: Ethical Possibilities in Rieko Matsuura’s KenshinKayo Takeuchi Chapter Nine: Pricking Pain S