The Woman's Hand: Gender and Theory in Japanese Women's Writing

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. Feminist literary critics have generally defined women s 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 women s writing.

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 delicieuse, 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.