Abe Kazushige’s Male Homosocial Worlds: Duels and Complaints

22.10.2020 18:30 - 20:00

Our second virtual u:japan lecture this fall by Maria Roemer explores the Japanese writer Abe Kazushige’s early fiction.

Abstract

Abe Kazushige’s 1990s fiction destabilizes hegemonic notions of manliness. This lecture analyzes how Abe’s debut novel Amerika no yoru (Day by Night, 1994) and his short story Minagoroshi (Massacre, 1998) evoke homoerotic images through depicting male homosocial competition or intimacy in heterosexual erotic triangles. The analysis will highlight how, in both pieces, such affect specifically expresses through speech; two men who are opponents by definition of their positions within the triangle, form a union by sharing a common topic of conversation (the women in question). The lecture will theorize these speech patterns as “dueling discourse” according to Roland Barthes on the one hand, and “male complaint” by inverting Lauren Berlant on the other. It finally will debate whether representations of such feminized masculinities relate to the specific historical context of post-bubble Japan.

Bio

Maria Roemer obtained her Ph.D. in 2019 from Heidelberg University with a dissertation Metafiction and Masculinities in Abe Kazushige's 90s Fiction. Her research focuses on gender and masculinities, precarity, Transcultural Studies, formalism and translation in contemporary Japanese literature and film. She currently teaches at The University of Leeds.

Date & Time:

Thursday 2020-10-22, 18:30~20:00 (iCal)
max. 100 participants

Plattform & Link: