Organizer: Vera Mackie, University of Melbourne, Australia

Chair: Morris F. Low, Johns Hopkins University

Discussant: Stefan Tanaka, University of California, San Diego

In social science research, it has been commented that the ‘cultural turn’ and the ‘linguistic turn’ have been succeeded by the ‘somatic turn’. Similarly, feminist theorists have expressed renewed interest in the body after re-thinking the usefulness of the sex/gender distinction. Neither development entails a return to biological determinism, but rather a renewed look at the implications of social constructionism, a rethinking of the concept of experience, and a consideration of ‘embodied politics’. Through an analysis of media texts, life-writing, narrative and official discourse on bodies, embodiment and biopower, we deploy the insights of recent social and cultural theory in an interdisciplinary exploration of embodiment, the cultural construction of the body in modern Japan, and the embodied dimensions of subjecthood and citizenship. We are interested not only in ‘what bodies are’, but also in ‘what bodies do’. While attention is given to the ‘marked’ body of the ‘other’ which is subject to violence, suppression and exploitation, we are also interested in the ‘unmarked’ body against which these ‘others’ are defined. Barbara Hartley considers the figure of the maternal body in the writings of Korean–Japanese writers, and what this can tell us about the embodied politics of colonialism and postcoloniality. Morris Low looks at the presentation of the figure of the Emperor in post–war media discourse. Izumi Nakayama and Vera Mackie counterpose social policy and personal narratives in an attempt to provide new perspectives on the state’s management of bodies.

Barbara Hartley, University of Queensland, Australia

The maternal body is a ubiquitous trope in the writing of a number of prominent Korean Japanese writers. Examples include the mutilated body of the child protagonist’s mother, bloodied and maimed following an attack by her partner, in "Hikari no naka ni" (1939, In the Light) by Kim Sa Ryang (1914-1950), and the malodorous body of the mother of the protagonist, approaching death in the final stages of uterine cancer, in "Kazukime" (1984, Woman Under Water) by Yi Yang Ji (1955-1992). This presentation will focus on the representation of the maternal body in the Akutagawa Prize winning text, "Kinuta o utsu onna" (1971, The Woman Who Fulled Cloth), by Yi Hoe-song (b. 1935). The life of the mother in this work spans almost the precise duration of the colonisation of Korea. Her corporeal existence, including the adversities imposed upon her and her resolve to resist, might thus be regarded as a metonymn for Japan’s imperial project on the Korean peninsula. Like several other mothers who appear in Korean Japanese writing, this woman’s body is inscribed with the trace of both imperial oppression and gender restraint. Her life ends during childbirth. However, the narrative account of her son’s reconstructed memory of her life provides insights into the powerful and confronting manner in which the body of the mother in Korean Japanese writing can unsettle assumptions about both gender and empire. The text simultaneously confirms the damage to the subject which results upon impact with these dominant social constructs.

Izumi Nakayama, History/East Asian Languages, Harvard

Working women’s narratives reveal an important relationship between female bodies and wage labor. Female biological reproduction has been generally relegated to the realm of non-productive behaviors. However, once women participate in the wage labor market, their laboring bodies become the arena for capitalistic contests. This paper will highlight how some women in the 1920s argued for menstruation leave in order to negotiate competing demands made upon their bodies. In 1928, female bus conductors of the Tokyo Municipal Bus Company made one of the first demands for menstruation leave (seiri kyuka). Menstruation was an economic issue, for they often took days off from work during their cycle, resulting in a temporary loss of wages. Numerous surveys had already noted the high rate of menstrual irregularities among the bus conductors, and pointed to the connection between irregular menstrual cycles and infertility. Utilizing such discourses on reproductive potential, the bus conductors argued that a healthy menstrual cycle (made possible by paid menstruation leave) increased the possibility for healthy reproduction. I will analyze the intersecting desires and motives behind these demands, and how menstruation leave was invoked to reinforce differences between workers.

Vera Mackie, University of Melbourne, Australia

In this paper, I will consider some ways of representing citizenship and physical difference in Japan. If we examine social policies, we can see a shift in official policy from seeing physical difference as a matter of welfare policy, to a recognition of those with disabilities as citizens who participate in the community and society. The question of citizenship and physical difference is dealt with in rather different ways in the sphere of life-writing. There have recently been several autobiographical texts which have dealt with the experience of physical difference. Such texts as Ototake Hirotada’s autobiography Gotai Fumanzoku (translated as Nobody’s Perfect) have been important in naturalising the presence of differently-able individuals in public space: both physical space and the discursive space of the media. Such texts illustrate the limitations of physical environments which have been designed with ‘able’ individuals in mind and demonstrate that the ability to exercise active citizenship is intimately related to access to public space. An analysis of autobiographical texts which deal with the question of physical difference will be undertaken in order to explore new insights into the question of citzenship and physical difference which can not be gained simply by analyzing official policy documents and legislation.

Morris F. Low, Johns Hopkins University

Over sixty years ago, Japan dealt with defeat by reinventing the emperor. His body became the site of national rehabilitation. He was literally transformed from wartime leader clothed in military uniform to scientist and family man. This paper draws on archival documents, press reports, photographs, and sources in both Japanese and English, to examine how this transformation occurred. It can be argued that the changes in representations of the emperor’s body reflected the reconfiguration of Japan’s national image, its embrace of science and technology, and new discourses about Japanese identity and the US-Japan relationship.