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The Girl, the Body, and the Nation in Japan and the Pacific Rim: Introduction

2008; Routledge; Volume: 32; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10357820802294149

1467-8403

Tomoko Aoyama,

Asian Culture and Media Studies

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgments On behalf of all the contributors to and participants in the workshop, I should like to express our sincere thanks to the Japan Foundation, whose Intellectual Exchange Conference Grant Program made this project possible. The project is also part of Aoyama's longer-term research project ‘From musume (daughter) to shōjo (girl): Representations of young women in modern Japanese literature’, funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project grant for 2005–07. A number of colleagues and students, particularly from the School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies at The University of Queensland, and other “girl” supporters have contributed their time, efforts and expertise before, during and after the workshop. Special thanks go to the Master of Japanese Interpreting and Translation students for their superb job of providing interpreting for the opening speech and Kawasaki Kenko's keynote speech. Finally, we thank the chief editor of the Asian Studies Review, Professor Maila Stivens, for giving us the opportunity to share our “girl power” and intellectual excitement from the workshop with a much wider audience. Notes 1. See, for example, Honda (1982 Honda, Masuko. 1982. Ibunka to shite no kodomo, Tokyo: Kinokuniya Shoten. [Google Scholar]), Kawasaki (1990 Kawasaki, Kenko. 1990. Shōjo biyori, Tokyo: Seikyūsha). [Google Scholar]) and Yokokawa (1991 Yokokawa, Sumiko. 1991. Shochō to iu kirifuda: Shōjoron josetsu, Tokyo: JICC Shuppankyoku). [Google Scholar]) regarding the Japanese situation. 2. For more detailed discussions of this term, see the essays by Kawasaki and Aoyama in this issue. See also Sharalyn Orbaugh's encyclopaedia entry (2002) and Sarah Frederick's definition in her chapter ‘Not That Innocent: Yoshiya Nobuko's Good Girls’, in Miller and Bardsley, 2005 Miller Laura Bardsley Jan 2005 Bad girls of Japan New York and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire Palgrave Macmillan) [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], pp. 67–69. 3. Fujoshi is a neologism replacing the fu“woman” of with fu“rot, decay”. The term is used for women and girls who have a passion for BL (boys' love) or male homosexual stories and parodies, which are often called yaoi. For BL and yaoi, see the special issue (December 2003, edited by Sharalyn Orbaugh) of US-Japan Women's Journal. 4. In a multi-authored study of the pioneering Ainu translator Chiri Yukie (1903–22), for instance, Maruyama Takashi examines the significance of the girls' “imagined community” in the development of this young Ainu woman's literary style (in Nishi and Sakiyama, 2007 Nishi Masahiko Sakiyama Masaki 2007 Ikyō no shi: Chiri Yukie, sono mawari Kyoto Jinbun Shoin) [Google Scholar], pp. 13–44). 5. Given that the girl has only recently been recognised as a topic of serious scholarly inquiry, numerous gaps remain in the literature. There is currently no published English-language translation, for example, of Honda Masuko's highly original and influential work. Aoyama and Hartley have translated one essay, which will be included in their edited volume, Girl Reading Girl in Japan (working title). 6. All Japanese names in this special issue are cited in Japanese order – that is, surname first. Only when the name refers to the author of a publication originally written in English is the anglicised order used. Hence Kawasaki (surname) Kenko (personal name) but Tomoko (personal name) Aoyama (surname). 7. Kawasaki (1990 Kawasaki, Kenko. 1990. Shōjo biyori, Tokyo: Seikyūsha). [Google Scholar]), for example, has a chapter on Osaki. Yagawa (1997 Yagawa, Sumiko. 1997. “Chichi no musume”-tachi: Mori Mari to Anaisu Nin, Tokyo: Shinchōsha. [Google Scholar]) is mainly about Mori, but also includes discussions of Osaki and Nomizo. Takahara (1999 Takahara, Eiri. 1999. Shōjo ryōiki, Tokyo: Kokusho Kankōkai). [Google Scholar]) includes chapters on Nomizo (chapter 1), Osaki (4), Kurahashi (7) and Mori (8). Kawasaki is currently completing her monograph on Osaki. 8. Comparison with some other girls discussed in this issue is tempting. Kojima's height and talent in sports, for instance, make a stark contrast with those of the “Martian Girl” in Yumeno's story and the pioneering athlete Hitomi Kunue mentioned in Aoyama's paper. Born in 1936, Kojima may have been a reader of the girls' magazine Dollase and Bae discuss in their papers. Like the beautiful girl Setsuko (Himiko's friend/foe) in Takeda Taijun's novel, Kojima had a militarist father, which gives added complexity to the reading of the photograph of her escorted by a US naval cadet in uniform at the “Coronation Ball”. Kojima's story is also highly relevant to the subject of the next article.