This collection brings together fifteen chapters written by scholars specializing in disciplines ranging from anthropology and sociology to literature, film, and performance studies. These scholars analyze complex questions about how the body is lived and imagined as a locus of meaning-making in contemporary Japan. Exploring such topics as mind-body dualism, aging and illness, spirit possession, beauty, performance, and gender, this collection addresses the wide array of socio-cultural and literary contexts in which the body is interpreted in Japanese culture and thought.
Part I: The Performed Body Chapter One: A Japanese Fox in a Woman's Body: Shifting Performances of Femininity in Kij Johnson's Reworking of Konjaku Monogatari Luciana Cardi Chapter Two: Call Me a Dog. Feeling (Inugami) Possession in Contemporary Tokushima Prefecture Andrea De Antoni Chapter Three: Kabuki: Performance of Gendered Bodies Galia 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 Gaga Carmen Sapunaru Tamas Part II: The De-formed Body Chapter Six: The Body in Motion in Buto: Passivity and Transformation in the Flesh Caitlin Coker Chapter Seven: Senility and the Body: Care and Gender in Contemporary Japanese Literature Shun Izutani Chapter Eight: The Cared for Dog and the Caring Dog: Ethical Possibilities in Rieko Matsuura's Kenshin Kayo Takeuchi Chapter Nine: Pricking Pain Surrounds Us: Restraining, Shaping, and Taming the Body in Hebi ni Piasu Emerald L. King Chapter Ten: Literature as Social Activism and Reconciliation: Survivors' Writing and the Meaning of Hansen's Disease in Japan after 1950 Kathryn Tanaka Chapter Eleven: The Bald and the Beautiful: Perspectives on Baldness in Contemporary Japan Adrian O. Tamas Part III: The Conformed Body Chapter Twelve: The Asian Body in the North American Context: Visual and Literary Racialization Alina E. Anton Chapter Thirteen: Bodies in the Dark: The Postwar Cinema Audience and the Body as 'Ground Zero' Jennifer Coates Chapter Fourteen: The Confined Body in Ogawa Yoko's The Ring Finger: A Beguiling Journey towards "Self-discovery" Kayo Sasao Chapter Fifteen: Bodies of Onna-no-ko: The Case of a Sex Establishment in Tokyo, Japan Yoko Kumada
