0
Your cart

Your cart is empty

Browse All Departments
Price
  • R50 - R100 (5)
  • R100 - R250 (306)
  • R250 - R500 (1,202)
  • R500+ (6,472)
  • -
Status
Format
Author / Contributor
Publisher

Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Gender studies > Women's studies > Feminism

Feminist Phenomenology (Hardcover, 2000 ed.): Linda Fisher, Lester Embree Feminist Phenomenology (Hardcover, 2000 ed.)
Linda Fisher, Lester Embree
R6,648 Discovery Miles 66 480 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This volume is composed chiefly of papers first presented and discussed at the Research Symposium on Feminist Phenomenology held November 18-19, 1994 in Delray Beach, Florida. Those papers have been revised and expanded for publication in the present volume and several essays have been added. We would like to thank very much all the participants in the symposium, including the session chairs and others in attendance, whose interest and enthusiasm contributed greatly. The symposium and this volume, including the name for it, were conceived of by Lester Embree, who also arranged sponsorship, local arrangements, and publication through the William F. Dietrich Eminent Scholar Chair at Florida Atlantic University and the Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology, Inc. The invitees were decided upon jointly. Linda Fisher has been chiefly responsible for the editing and the preparation of the camera-ready copy. Linda Fisher Lester Embree Acknowledgments The editing and preparation of this volume has spanned several cities and two continents and I am indebted to many people from each place.

Marginal Bodies, Trans Utopias (Hardcover): Caterina Nirta Marginal Bodies, Trans Utopias (Hardcover)
Caterina Nirta
R4,655 Discovery Miles 46 550 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Although over the last two decades there has been a proliferation of gender studies, transgender has largely remained institutionalised as an 'umbrella term' that encapsulates all forms of gender understandings differing from what are thought to be gender norms. In both theoretical and medical literature, trans identity has been framed within a paradigm of awkwardness or discomfort, self-dislike or dysfunctional mental health. Marginal Bodies, Trans Utopias is a multidisciplinary book that draws primarily from Deleuze and post-structuralism in order to reformulate the concept of utopia and ground it in the materiality of the present. Through a radically new conceptualisation of the time and space of utopia, it analyses empirical findings from trans video diaries on the Internet belonging to transgender individuals. In doing so, this volume offers new insights into the everyday challenges faced by these subjectivities, with case studies focusing on: the legal/social impact of the UK's Gender Recognition Act 2004, boundaries of public and private as evidenced within public toilets, and the narrative of the 'wrong body'. Contextualising and applying Deleuzian concepts such as 'difference' and 'marginal' to the context of the research, Nirta helps the reader to understand trans as 'unity' rather than as a 'mind-body mismatch'. Contributing to the reading and understanding of trans lived experience, this book shall be of interest to postgraduates and postdoctoral researchers interested in fields such as Transgender Studies, Critical Studies, Sociology of Gender and Philosophy of Time.

Changing State Feminism (Hardcover): J. Outshoorn, J. Kantola Changing State Feminism (Hardcover)
J. Outshoorn, J. Kantola
R2,950 Discovery Miles 29 500 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Most Western democracies established women's policy agencies to improve the status of women by the 1990s. However, the political context has changed drastically: developments such as welfare state reform, multilevel governance, regionalization and decentralization have impinged on opportunities for agencies and women's movements to mobilize. One of the book's key questions is how have women's policy agencies been able to develop, maintain or enhance their roles in the transformed political context and how have women's movements adapted to change in twelve states.

The 'Fat' Female Body (Hardcover): S. Murray The 'Fat' Female Body (Hardcover)
S. Murray
R1,531 Discovery Miles 15 310 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Investigating the current interest in obesity and fatness, this book explores the problems and ambiguities that form the lived experience of 'fat' women in contemporary Western society. Engaging with dominant ideas about 'fatness', and analysing the assumptions that inform anti-fat attitudes in the West, The 'Fat' Female Body explores the moral panic over the 'obesity epidemic', and the intersection of medicine and morality in pathologising 'fat' bodies. It contributes to the emerging field of fat studies by offering not only alternative understandings of subjectivity, the (re)production of public knowledge(s) of 'fatness', and politics of embodiment, but also the possibility of (re)reading 'fat' bodies to foster more productive social relations.

Women, the Arts and Globalization - Eccentric Experience (Hardcover): Marsha Meskimmon, Dorothy Rowe, Dorothy C. Rowe Women, the Arts and Globalization - Eccentric Experience (Hardcover)
Marsha Meskimmon, Dorothy Rowe, Dorothy C. Rowe; Series edited by Amelia Jones, Marsha Meskimmon
R2,575 Discovery Miles 25 750 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Women, the Arts and Globalization: Eccentric Experience is the first anthology to bring transnational feminist theory and criticism together with women's art practices to discuss the connections between aesthetics, gender and identity in a global world. The essays in Women, the Arts and Globalization demonstrate that women in the arts are rarely positioned at the center of the art market, and the movement of women globally (as travelers or migrants, empowered artists/scholars or exiled practitioners), rarely corresponds with the dominant models of global exchange. Rather, contemporary women's art practices provide a fascinating instance of women's eccentric experiences of the myriad effects of globalization. Bringing scholarly essays on gender, art and globalization together with interviews and autobiographical accounts of personal experiences, the diversity of the book is relevant to artists, art historians, feminist theorists and humanities scholars interested in the impact of globalization on culture in the broadest sense.

Women in Developing Economies - Making Visible the Invisible (Hardcover): Detlev Karsten Women in Developing Economies - Making Visible the Invisible (Hardcover)
Detlev Karsten
R4,470 Discovery Miles 44 700 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

This book is a selection of studies and articles aimed to sensitize planners and decision-makers to the invisible socioeconomic and cultural contribution of women in developing countries. The authors addresss such questions as: How can we make the contribution of women visible and more productive? How can we better utilize human resources that are often illiterate? How can we build on traditional wisdom in order to modernize? How can we reduce poverty? How can we prevent women from being excluded from the more lucrative activities of the informal sector?

Feminist Perspectives on Contemporary International Law - Between Resistance and Compliance? (Hardcover, New): Sari Kouvo, Zoe... Feminist Perspectives on Contemporary International Law - Between Resistance and Compliance? (Hardcover, New)
Sari Kouvo, Zoe Pearson
R2,622 Discovery Miles 26 220 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The essays in this volume analyse feminism's positioning vis-a-vis international law and the current paradigms of international law. The authors argue that, willingly or unwillingly, feminist perspectives on international law have come to be situated between 'resistance' and 'compliance'. That is, feminist scholarship aims at deconstructing international law to show why and how 'women' have been marginalised; at the same time feminists have been largely unwilling to challenge the core of international law and its institutions, remaining hopeful of international law's potential for women. The analysis is clustered around three themes: the first part, theory and method, looks at how feminist perspectives on international law have developed and seeks to introduce new theoretical and methodological tools (especially through a focus on psychoanalysis and geography). The second part, national and international security, focuses on how feminists have situated themselves in relation to the current discourses of 'crisis', the post-9/11 NGO 'industry' and the changing discourses of violence against women. The third part, global and local justice, addresses some of the emerging trends in international law, focusing especially on transitional justice, state-building, trafficking and economic globalisation.

Greater than the Sum of Our Parts - Feminism, Inter/Nationalism, and Palestine (Paperback): Nada Elia Greater than the Sum of Our Parts - Feminism, Inter/Nationalism, and Palestine (Paperback)
Nada Elia
R399 Discovery Miles 3 990 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

How is the struggle for Palestinian freedom bound up in other freedom struggles, and how are activists coming together globally to achieve justice and liberation for all? In this bold book, Palestinian activist Nada Elia unpacks Zionism, from its militarism to its prisons, its environmental devastation and gendered violence. She insists that Palestine's fate is linked through bonds of solidarity to other communities crossing racial and gender lines, weaving an intersectional feminist understanding of Israeli apartheid throughout her analysis. She also looks deeper into the interconnectedness of Palestine with Black, migrant, and queer movements, and with other indigenous struggles against settler colonialism, including that of Native Americans. Greater than the Sum of Our Parts is a powerful and hopeful account, highlighting the role of the Palestinian diaspora, youth, and women, and inspired by activists across the world.

The Politics of Survivorship - Incest, Women's Literature, and Feminist Theory (Hardcover, New): Rosaria Champagne The Politics of Survivorship - Incest, Women's Literature, and Feminist Theory (Hardcover, New)
Rosaria Champagne
R2,638 Discovery Miles 26 380 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The topic of incest began to emerge in the early 1990s, producing a spate of television specials and providing the material for a surging industry of talk shows as well as an anti-feminist campaign against incest survivors and their therapists. The validity, reality, and readability of recovered memories of incest has become a highly contested and difficult subject.

This heightened interest has benefited incest survivors, according to Rosaria Champagne, by allowing them to speak up and make political their experiences. Victims, formerly entwined in their own abuse by remaining silent, have learned to voice their protest and to challenge the societal order that allows incest to occur.

In The Politics of Survivorship Champagne explores a range of cultural representations of incest, from the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley to mother-daughter incest in contemporary true crime novels, to Oprah Winfrey's television special Scared Silent, in order to examine expressions of survivorship. In the process, Champagne attempts to level the disparity and the hierarchy of value among theory, literature, popular culture and social movements. Champagne makes a powerful argument that community and academic feminists should embrace survivorship as a potential site of feminist political intervention into patriarchy and heterosexism. She concludes with a critical look at the way in which the False Memory Syndrome Foundation has conducted an anti-feminist campaign against incest survivors and their therapists.

Women's Movements in International Perspective - Latin America and Beyond (Hardcover, New): M. Molyneux Women's Movements in International Perspective - Latin America and Beyond (Hardcover, New)
M. Molyneux
R1,543 Discovery Miles 15 430 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Until now, the analysis of gender and political inequality, and of the women's movements that have contested it, has concentrated on the West. In this wide-ranging re-evaluation, incorporating development studies and political sociology, Maxine Molyneux redresses this balance by analyzing Latin American women's movements within liberal, authoritarian, and revolutionary states. These studies of Argentina, Nicaragua, and Cuba, alongside comparative discussions of socialism, women's movements, and citizenship, examine the complex, and persistent, interaction of states and women's movements, and the diversity of responses engendered.

Women and Revolution - Global Expressions (Hardcover, 1998 ed.): Marie Josephine Diamond Women and Revolution - Global Expressions (Hardcover, 1998 ed.)
Marie Josephine Diamond
R4,570 Discovery Miles 45 700 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Taking its starting point from women's contributions to the French revolution, this important anthology goes far beyond any particular historical, European or American context and expands its scope in space and time to an all-inclusive global theme, namely the contributions of radical women towards an ever-changing world and its revolutionary transformations everywhere. The superbly edited essays by diverse contributors from various continents and disciplines explore a wide platform of women's revolutionary involvements and elucidate the broad range of contributions by women scholars, scientists and activists to movements of social transformation, as well as to a reexamination of established methods of cultural analysis from enlightened liberalism to Marxism. The contributions of women scholars and activists from Africa, Asia and Latin America are particularly significant in that they transcend and expand European/North American feminism as relevant primarily to its own socio-cultural context and focus on women acting in terms of their own non-Western traditions and cultures, that is, on non-Western models based on indigenous strategies of social transformation. This rich anthology shuns any postulation of a single global model for revolution. Yet, despite the emergence of a problematic relationship between Western or Western educated theorists and the causes of the oppressed', women's diverse social, cultural and historical experiences and strategies are united in this edition, as in their common causes, as emphasized by the following statement in the introduction: the female body has become ... a privileged site for social analysis in the context of international capitalism as well asin the critique of traditional socialism.' Sabine Jell-Bahlsen, Ogbuide Films Women and Revolution covers an enormous socio-historical space, four continents - Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America &endash; and quite a few countries within them. This huge field of human experience is looked at from the focal point which runs explicitly and implicitly through all nineteen chapters: the active if not revolutionary role women have played individually and collectively in various determining social situations, a role regularly suppressed by the coercive power of institutionalized domination. The impetus for this endeavor was the commemoration of the bicentennial of the French Revolution, an occasion to take an in-depth look at its less obvious agendas, through a focus on the activity of women, and on Olympe de Gouges in particular. But as Olympe de Gouges became acquainted with Mr. Guillotine, the considerable role of women became suppressed not only actually but as a kind of damnatio memoriae which the old Romans had already invented. As this work shows, there have been multiple forms and contents through which women have taken history into their own hands and have participated in emancipatory struggles throughout the world. They are at their best in their use of the resources of local village traditions, of dense social contexts, of mutual aid and in turning such grassroots resources into radical democratic struggles for the future. A fascinating and timely book!. Wolf-Dieter Narr, Freie Universitat Berlin The vital role played by women in struggles for social transformation has scarcely been appreciated, and with the sense of defeat that hangs over the revolutionary project, stands to befurther forgotten. That is why the publication of Women and Revolution is both welcome and necessary &endash; on intellectual and scholarly grounds, but also because these are stories which have to be told if we are to resume the march toward a better world. Joel Kovel, Bard College

Women and Citizenship (Hardcover, New): Marilyn Friedman Women and Citizenship (Hardcover, New)
Marilyn Friedman
R2,890 R2,743 Discovery Miles 27 430 Save R147 (5%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The notion of citizenship is complex; it can be at once an identity; a set of rights, privileges, and responsibilities; an elevated and exclusionary status, a relationship between individual and state, and more. In recent decades citizenship has attracted interdisciplinary attention, particularly with the transnational growth of Western capitalism. Yet citizenship's relationship to gender has gone relatively unexplored-despite that throughout much of human history, women have been and continue to be denied citizenship, sometimes at even the lowest rank. This highly interdisciplinary volume explores the political and cultural dimensions of citizenship and their relevance to women and gender. Containing essays by a well-known group of scholars, including Iris Marion Young, Alison Jaggar, Martha Nussbaum, and Sandra Bartky, this book examines the conceptual issues and strategies at play in the feminist quest to give women full citizenship status. The contributors take a fresh look at the issues, going beyond conventional critiques, and examine problems in the political and social arrangements, practices, and conditions that diminish women's citizenship in various parts of the world, including both Western and undeveloped nations.

Liberating Masculinities (Paperback): Kopano Ratele Liberating Masculinities (Paperback)
Kopano Ratele 3
R260 R203 Discovery Miles 2 030 Save R57 (22%) Out of stock

In Liberating Masculinities, Kopano Ratele posits that all masculinities are working models, and some models might be more unworkable given the prevailing structural conditions. The more models of masculinity we have access to, the higher the likelihood that some will be workable, even liberating. Instead of a singular, ahistorical and property that comes with having a penis, the book opens up a view where masculinities are culturally constructed relational models. Covering a range of topics, from clothes and violent death, through a better sexual life and tradition, to race and feminism, Liberating Masculinities presents ways to understand the contestations around masculinity and gender relations. Ratele offers both theoretically rich and psychologically insightful analyses to liberate men, as well as those who are involved in the making of men, from oppressive and injurious models of masculinity.

The Conundrum of Masculinity - Hegemony, Homosociality, Homophobia and Heteronormativity (Hardcover): Chris Haywood, Thomas... The Conundrum of Masculinity - Hegemony, Homosociality, Homophobia and Heteronormativity (Hardcover)
Chris Haywood, Thomas Johansson, Nils Hammaren, Marcus Herz, Andreas Ottemo
R4,361 Discovery Miles 43 610 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Popular culture is awash with discussions about the difficulties associated with being a man. Television talk shows, media articles and government press releases discuss not simply the problem of men, but have more recently focused on the problems of being a man. The Conundrum of Masculinity challenges highly advertised beliefs that men are in crisis and struggling to hold onto traditional masculine habits whilst the world around them changes. Indeed, whilst there is a range of valuable contributions to the field that examine how men live out their lives in different contexts, there are few accounts that examine in detail the building blocks of masculinity or how men are really 'put together'. Thus, this innovative and timely volume seeks to provide a systematic exploration of the different aspects of masculinity - in particular hegemony, homosociality, homophobia and heteronormativity. An original approach to the field of masculinity studies, this book ultimately presents a critical synthesis that brings together disparate approaches to provide a clear and concise discussion to address the true nature of masculinity. The Conundrum of Masculinity will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students interested in fields such as Gender Studies, Masculinity Studies and Sociology.

Post-feminist Impasses in Popular Heroine Television - The Persephone Complex (Hardcover, 1st ed. 2015): Alison Horbury Post-feminist Impasses in Popular Heroine Television - The Persephone Complex (Hardcover, 1st ed. 2015)
Alison Horbury
R1,987 R1,870 Discovery Miles 18 700 Save R117 (6%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Alison Horbury investigates the reprisal of the myth of Persephone - a mother-daughter plot of separation and initiation - in post-feminist television cultures where, she argues, it functions as a symptom expressing a complex around the question of sexual difference - what Lacan calls 'sexuation', where this question has been otherwise foreclosed.

The Frontiers of Citizenship (Hardcover): Michael Moran, Ursula Vogel The Frontiers of Citizenship (Hardcover)
Michael Moran, Ursula Vogel
R4,440 Discovery Miles 44 400 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Who is entitled to be a citizen? What rights and duties does citizenship involve? These political questions are being asked today with a renewed urgency, both by practising politicians and by scholars. These essays by distinguished contributors examine the changing frontiers of modern citizenship. They look at the way citizenship is being reshaped within the nation state, in relations between women and the state, under the impact of economic crisis and recession, and in the face of new multinational political forces.

New Modern Chinese Women and Gender Politics - The Centennial of the End of the Qing Dynasty (Paperback): Chen Ya-Chen New Modern Chinese Women and Gender Politics - The Centennial of the End of the Qing Dynasty (Paperback)
Chen Ya-Chen
R1,506 Discovery Miles 15 060 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The past century witnessed dramatic changes in the lives of modern Chinese women and gender politics. Whilst some revolutionary actions to rectify the feudalist patriarchy, such as foot-binding and polygyny were first seen in the late Qing period; the termination of the Qing Dynasty and establishment of Republican China in 1911-1912 initiated truly nation-wide constitutional reform alongside increasing gender egalitarianism. This book traces the radical changes in gender politics in China, and the way in which the lives, roles and status of Chinese women have been transformed over the last one hundred years. In doing so, it highlights three distinctive areas of development for modern Chinese women and gender politics: first, women's equal rights, freedom, careers, and images about their modernized femininity; second, Chinese women's overseas experiences and accomplishments; and third, advances in Chinese gender politics of non-heterosexuality and same-sex concerns. This book takes a multi-disciplinary approach, drawing on film, history, literature, and personal experience. As such, it will be of huge interest to students and scholars of Chinese culture and society, women's studies, gender studies and gender politics.

Gender, Sexuality and Reproduction in Evolutionary Narratives (Paperback): Venla Oikkonen Gender, Sexuality and Reproduction in Evolutionary Narratives (Paperback)
Venla Oikkonen
R1,147 Discovery Miles 11 470 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Since the early 1990s, evolutionary psychology has produced widely popular visions of modern men and women as driven by their prehistoric genes. In Gender, Sexuality and Reproduction in Evolutionary Narratives, Venla Oikkonen explores the rhetorical appeal of evolutionary psychology by viewing it as part of the Darwinian narrative tradition. Refusing to start from the position of dismissing evolutionary psychology as reactionary or scientifically invalid, the book examines evolutionary psychologists' investments in such contested concepts as teleology and variation. The book traces the emergence of evolutionary psychological narratives of gender, sexuality and reproduction, encompassing: Charles Darwin's understanding of transformation and sexual difference Edward O. Wilson's evolutionary mythology and the evolution-creationism controversy Richard Dawkins' molecular agency and new imaging technologies the connections between adultery, infertility and homosexuality in adaptationist thought. Through popular, literary and scientific texts, the book identifies both the imaginative potential and the structural weaknesses in evolutionary narratives, opening them up for feminist and queer revision. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of the humanities and social sciences, particularly in gender studies, cultural studies, literature, sexualities, and science and technology studies.

Making 'Postmodern' Mothers - Pregnant Embodiment, Baby Bumps and Body Image (Hardcover): M. Nash Making 'Postmodern' Mothers - Pregnant Embodiment, Baby Bumps and Body Image (Hardcover)
M. Nash
R1,540 Discovery Miles 15 400 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Based on interviews with pregnant women, this book provides a multi-disciplinary empirical account of pregnant embodiment and how it relates to wider sociological and feminist discourses about gender, bodies, 'fitness', 'fat', celebrity and motherhood.

Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Feminist Origins of the Arthurian Legend (Hardcover): F. Tolhurst Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Feminist Origins of the Arthurian Legend (Hardcover)
F. Tolhurst
R2,663 Discovery Miles 26 630 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Feminist Origins of the Arthurian Legend provides the first feminist analysis of both the Arthurian section of The History of the Kings of Britain and The Life of Merlin. Fiona Tolhurst argues that because Geoffrey creates nontraditional and unusually powerful female figures, he stands outside of - and works against the misogyny of - the medieval literary tradition. This study employs the strategies of both historicist and New Historicist critics and adds a new dimension to existing scholarship by proposing that the word 'feminist' can be used to describe a medieval text that presents female figures meaningfully and, in most cases, positively.

Camus's L'Etranger: Fifty Years on (Hardcover): Adele King Camus's L'Etranger: Fifty Years on (Hardcover)
Adele King
R2,934 Discovery Miles 29 340 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Camus' L'Etranger (The Outsider) has become one of the most widely read books of modern literature. The essays contained in this book celebrate its continuing influence throughout the world. Contributors come from Algeria, Samoa, India, Russia, France, Britain and the US. Also included are essays by prominent French and English-language authors for whom the novel has been an influential expression of contemporary sensibility. Other essays include feminist interpretations of Meursault, studies of Camus' narrative form, and explorations of the Algerian setting of the novel. Comparative studies show Camus' relation to the New Novel, to Greene and Orwell and to Jules Roy. Other books by Adele King include Camus, French Women Novelists: Defining a Female Style and Proust.

Global Perspectives on Women in Combat Sports - Women Warriors around the World (Hardcover, 1st ed. 2015): Christopher R.... Global Perspectives on Women in Combat Sports - Women Warriors around the World (Hardcover, 1st ed. 2015)
Christopher R. Matthews, Alex C. Hannon
R4,160 Discovery Miles 41 600 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

This volume offers a wide-reaching overview of current academic research on women's participation in combat sports within a range of different national and trans-national contexts, detailing many of the struggles and opportunities experienced by women at various levels of engagement within sports such as boxing, wrestling, and mixed martial arts.

Feminism and Criminal Justice - A Historical Perspective (Hardcover): Anne Logan Feminism and Criminal Justice - A Historical Perspective (Hardcover)
Anne Logan
R2,936 Discovery Miles 29 360 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This book provides a comprehensive study of the neglected story of the involvement of the women's movement with criminal justice policy in the 20th century. Taking the topic from the 'suffragette' era to the early days of 'second-wave' feminism, the book argues that criminal justice policy has been a continual concern for feminists.

Organising Feminisms - The Micropolitics of the Academy (Hardcover, 1999 ed.): L. Morley Organising Feminisms - The Micropolitics of the Academy (Hardcover, 1999 ed.)
L. Morley
R2,918 Discovery Miles 29 180 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This interdisciplinary study of feminism, equity and change in the academy attempts to decode and disentangle gendered message systems and the matrix of power relations in the academy. Based on interviews with forty feminist academics and students in Britain, Sweden and Greece, the book consists of feminist readings of the micro-processes of everyday practices. Change is interrogated in relation to feminist pedagogy, equity, organizational culture, policies and discourses of new right reform, mass expansion and new managerialism.

The Demimonde in Japanese Literature - Sexuality and the Literary Karykai (Hardcover, New): Cynthia Gralla The Demimonde in Japanese Literature - Sexuality and the Literary Karykai (Hardcover, New)
Cynthia Gralla
R2,640 Discovery Miles 26 400 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

From the Edo-period works of Chikamatsu Monzaemon and Saikaku Iharu, to modern texts by Nagai Kafu, Tanizaki Junichiro, and Nobel-prize winner Kawabata Yasunari, the Japanese literary canon is filled with works about the demimonde, or karyukai. After years of being closed off to Western influences on both its literature and social policy, Japan fully opened up to the West in the late nineteenth century and finally abolished legalized prostitution in 1956. Until then, the idea of a space set aside for sexuality, like Tokyo's Yoshiwara district, had been a powerful catalyst in structuring stories about the demimonde, and in fact, narratives about the demimonde have continued to flourish in Japan even in the second half of the 20th century and beyond, even though the actual physical space of the traditional karyukai has disappeared. In breadth and accomplishment, Japan's demimonde literature rivals that of any other national literature; yet very little work analyzing the cultural, psychological, and textual significance of this space has been published to date. What is more, bringing comparative approaches to Japanese literary studies is a relatively new phenomenon, but Western literature is essential to understanding both the wider context in which demimonde literature blossomed, as well as to probing what is unique about Japan's karyukai-themed texts. The Demimonde in Japanese Literature applies both a comparativist approach and psychoanalytic models to the examination of the literary karyukai in a way that allows for a penetrating and multi-dimensional reading of its meaning in works produced during Japan's tumultuous twentieth century. This book analyzes representations of the demimonde in Japanese literature and other arts from the beginning of the twentieth century to the early 1990s, through fiction, critical essays, films, photographs, and performances by Nagai Kafu, Koda Aya, Tanizaki Junichiro, Kuki Shuzo, Mishima Yukio, Hosoe Eikoh, Tamura Taijiro, Murakami Ryu, Ohno Kazuo, and Matsumoto Toshio. Throughout the book, the author views the demimonde in general and the karyukai in particular through the changing paradigms of spatial terms and configurations in the twentieth-century Japanese imagination. In some narratives written during the pre-World War II period, for instance, the karyukai is distanced from the reader by the connoisseur as a way of containing and idealizing it in 1930s Japan, in a climate of intense censorship and military imperialism; in others it is chronicled as disruptive to public space, its values and fetishes spreading into new physical spaces in the tumultuous interwar Tokyo metropole. During the postwar era, as the book's close readings show, the demimonde is often shown to transcend psychic space via the taboo movement of memory, and occasionally it is internalized in the text via a celebration of small spaces and a poetics of dwelling. Surveying such a variety of writings and artists allows for a thorough analysis of the representation of the space of the demimonde not just in literary texts, but in films, photographs, and dance/performance art as well. The study also draws on comparative examples from Western demimonde texts, especially those that were pivotal for Japanese writers and artists, and she uses them to formulate a complex argument about the socio-cultural, psychological, aesthetic, literary, and political significance of the space of the karyukai. The book also helpfully includes translated passages from books that were not previously translated in their entirety into English, including Koda Aya's Nagareru. The Demimonde in Japanese Literature is an important book for all Asian studies, comparative literature, and women's studies collections.

Free Delivery
Pinterest Twitter Facebook Google+
You may like...
Entitled - How Male Privilege Hurts…
Kate Manne Paperback R298 R248 Discovery Miles 2 480
Frenemies - Feminists, Conservatives…
Nancy Whittier Hardcover R3,393 Discovery Miles 33 930
Reflecting Rogue - Inside The Mind Of A…
Pumla Dineo Gqola Paperback  (4)
R310 R266 Discovery Miles 2 660
Beyond Speech - Pornography and Analytic…
Mari Mikkola Hardcover R3,702 Discovery Miles 37 020
Living While Feminist - Our Bodies, Our…
Jen Thorpe Paperback R320 R275 Discovery Miles 2 750
Nasty Women Talk Back - Feminist Essays…
Joy Watson Paperback  (2)
R399 Discovery Miles 3 990
Vulnerability - New Essays in Ethics and…
Catriona Mackenzie, Wendy Rogers, … Hardcover R3,896 Discovery Miles 38 960
Living While Black - The Essential Guide…
Guilaine Kinouani Paperback R350 R277 Discovery Miles 2 770
Glossy - The Inside Story Of Vogue
Nina-Sophia Miralles Paperback R478 R321 Discovery Miles 3 210
Out from the Shadows - Analytical…
Sharon L Crasnow, Anita M. Superson Hardcover R2,403 R1,997 Discovery Miles 19 970

 

Partners