Gender and National Literature: Heian Texts in the Constructions of Japanese Modernity

Tomiko Yoda

Published by Duke University Press 2004

Gender and National Literature

Heian Texts in the Constructions of Japanese Modernity

Tomiko Yoda
Edited by: Rey Chow , Harry Harootunian and Masao Miyoshi

In the series Asia-Pacific: Culture, Politics, and Society

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822385875

Overview
Contents

About this book

This work presents a new understanding of the way that classic works of Japanese literature have been received and understood within the framework of national literature studies in Japan.

Author / Editor information

Tomiko Yoda is Associate Professor in the Department of Asian and African Languages and the Program in Literature at Duke University.

Reviews

“I can think of few other scholarly monographs that have taught us as much about the historical significance of the study of classical ‘literature’ in modernity. The narrative texts of Heian Japan have never received more meticulous and rigorous scrutiny achieved with such sheer intelligence. Tomiko Yoda succeeds in speaking to interdisciplinary and international audiences about why the institution of ‘literature’ had to serve a crucial role in the manufacture of specifically gendered subjects of the nation and how the pronominal categories had to be invented in order to newly designate modern subjects. She has laid a cornerstone in the literary studies of modernity, which the cultural studies of Japan, East Asia, and Europe can no longer ignore. This is a remarkable achievement.”—Naoki Sakai, Cornell University

“Keenly, lucidly, thoroughly, Gender and National Literature shows how the modern feminization of Heian literature did not simply parallel the formation of the modern subject in Japan, but proved integral to it. Tomiko Yoda thus issues a profound challenge to the received wisdom about the femininity and the ‘women’ of classical literature. And her response is brilliant: turning to the materiality of the Heian text, Yoda poses new readings that take the question of gender far beyond previous studies of Heian and modern Japanese literature.”—Thomas LaMarre, author of Uncovering Heian Japan: An Archaeology of Sensation and Inscription

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Note to the Reader Publicly Available Download PDF	xv
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1.The Feminization of Heian and Eighteenth-Century Poetics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	25
2. Gender and the Nationalization of Literature Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	41
3. Women and the Emergence of Heian Kana Writing Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	81
4. Politics and Poetics in The Tale of Genji Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	111
5. Tokieda’s Imperial Subject and the Textual Turn in Heian Literary Studies Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	146
6. Gender and Heian Narrative Form Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	182
Epilogue: Heian Texts and Feminist Subjects Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	214
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	231
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	261
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	269

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Pages
- Main content: 296
Illustrations
- Other: 2 figures

eBook

Published: March 22, 2004
ISBN: 9780822385875