Machiko Ishikawa
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781501751943
- eISBN:
- 9781501751967
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501751943.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
How can the “voiceless” voice be represented? This primary question underpins this book's analysis of selected works by Buraku writer, Nakagami Kenji (1946–1992). In spite of his Buraku background, ...
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How can the “voiceless” voice be represented? This primary question underpins this book's analysis of selected works by Buraku writer, Nakagami Kenji (1946–1992). In spite of his Buraku background, Nakagami's privilege as a writer made it difficult for him to “hear” and “represent” those voices silenced by mainstream social structures in Japan. This “paradox of representing the silenced voice” is the key theme of the book. Gayatri Spivak theorizes the (im)possibility of representing the voice of “subalterns,” those oppressed by imperialism, patriarchy, and heteronomativity. Arguing for Burakumin as Japan's “subalterns,” the book draws on Spivak to analyze Nakagami's texts. The first half of the book revisits the theme of the transgressive Burakumin man. This section includes analysis of a seldom discussed narrative of a violent man and his silenced wife. The second half of the book focuses on the rarely heard voices of Burakumin women from the Kiyuki trilogy. Satoko, the prostitute, unknowingly commits incest with her half-brother, Akiyuki. The aged Yuki sacrifices her youth in a brothel to feed her fatherless family. The mute Moyo remains traumatized by rape. The author's close reading of Nakagami's representation of the silenced voices of these sexually stigmatized women is this book's unique contribution to Nakagami scholarship.Less
How can the “voiceless” voice be represented? This primary question underpins this book's analysis of selected works by Buraku writer, Nakagami Kenji (1946–1992). In spite of his Buraku background, Nakagami's privilege as a writer made it difficult for him to “hear” and “represent” those voices silenced by mainstream social structures in Japan. This “paradox of representing the silenced voice” is the key theme of the book. Gayatri Spivak theorizes the (im)possibility of representing the voice of “subalterns,” those oppressed by imperialism, patriarchy, and heteronomativity. Arguing for Burakumin as Japan's “subalterns,” the book draws on Spivak to analyze Nakagami's texts. The first half of the book revisits the theme of the transgressive Burakumin man. This section includes analysis of a seldom discussed narrative of a violent man and his silenced wife. The second half of the book focuses on the rarely heard voices of Burakumin women from the Kiyuki trilogy. Satoko, the prostitute, unknowingly commits incest with her half-brother, Akiyuki. The aged Yuki sacrifices her youth in a brothel to feed her fatherless family. The mute Moyo remains traumatized by rape. The author's close reading of Nakagami's representation of the silenced voices of these sexually stigmatized women is this book's unique contribution to Nakagami scholarship.
Alexandra Fanghanel
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781529202526
- eISBN:
- 9781529202533
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781529202526.003.0004
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
In recent years, BDSM communities and sexual practices have received increasing attention in academic circles and in popular discourse. Part one explores what happens at the threshold of kinky ...
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In recent years, BDSM communities and sexual practices have received increasing attention in academic circles and in popular discourse. Part one explores what happens at the threshold of kinky subculture and its penetration into the mainstream, within contemporary legal, cultural, and commercial discourses. Part Two explores the penetration of the disobedient body within the kink community and interrogates how ‘the community’ responds to trouble or disruption. In this part, I draw on interview data with men and women in the US and the UK who talked about how for instance, community is forged, consent violations are dealt with, undesirable behaviour of members of the community are negotiated, and how sexualised relations emerge.This chapter explores the ways in which social and spatial (in)justice through disavowal, exclusion, and the promotion of rape culture prevail in these encounters. Yet it is also hopeful and considers how some interventions might become transformative and how molecular revolutions might emerge.Less
In recent years, BDSM communities and sexual practices have received increasing attention in academic circles and in popular discourse. Part one explores what happens at the threshold of kinky subculture and its penetration into the mainstream, within contemporary legal, cultural, and commercial discourses. Part Two explores the penetration of the disobedient body within the kink community and interrogates how ‘the community’ responds to trouble or disruption. In this part, I draw on interview data with men and women in the US and the UK who talked about how for instance, community is forged, consent violations are dealt with, undesirable behaviour of members of the community are negotiated, and how sexualised relations emerge.This chapter explores the ways in which social and spatial (in)justice through disavowal, exclusion, and the promotion of rape culture prevail in these encounters. Yet it is also hopeful and considers how some interventions might become transformative and how molecular revolutions might emerge.
