Cartographies of Desire: Male-Male Sexuality in Japanese Discourse, 1600-1950 (Hardcover)

by Gregory M. Pflugfelder (Author) "For Japanese of the Edo period, "homosexuality" was an unfamiliar and perhaps unimaginable concept..." (more)
Key Phrases: nanshoku dangi, inu tsurezure, bunrui taizen, Minakata Kumagusu, Yoshida Setsuko, Inagaki Taruho (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
In this sweeping study of the mapping and remapping of male-male sexuality over four centuries of Japanese history, Gregory Pflugfelder explores the languages of medicine, law, and popular culture from the seventeenth century through the American Occupation. Pflugfelder opens with fascinating speculations about how an Edo translator might grapple with a twentieth-century text on homosexuality, then turns to law, literature, newspaper articles, medical tracts, and other sources to discover Japanese attitudes toward sexuality over the centuries. During each of three major eras, he argues, one field dominated discourse on male-male sexual relations: popular culture in the Edo period (1600-1868), jurisprudence in the Meiji period (1868-1912), and medicine in the twentieth century. This multidisciplinary and theoretically engaged analysis will interest not only students and scholars of Japan but also readers of gay studies, literary studies, gender studies, and cultural studies.

From the Inside Flap
"A remarkable and sorely needed synthesis of the best of traditional historiographical documentation and critically astute analysis and contextualization. Cartographies complements and, frankly, exceeds any of the English language monographs on similar topics that precede it, and it represents significant contributions to several fields outside of East Asian history, including literature, gender studies, lesbian and gay studies, and cultural studies."--Earl Jackson Jr., author of Strategies of Deviance: Studies in Gay male Representation and Fantastic Living: The Speculative Autobiographies of Samuel R. Delany

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 410 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (February 8, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520209095
• ISBN-13: 978-0520209091
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,604,403 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb Scholarship, March 22, 2004

By	David Spielman (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews

Pflugfelder's book, the product of 20 years of research, provides a necessary foundation for students of Japanese history and sexology. What is much more, he resists reinforcing the kinds of master narratives that this kind of history usually inforces. "Homosexual," for instance, becomes not an identity but a term situated in time and space with certain uses by and for certain people. His Foucauldian approach focuses mostly on shifts and resists any notion of progress. I think this book is important to students of History as a model for their own scholarship, not just as a substantial contribution to the more specific field of Japanese Studies.

12 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars INTERESTING STUDY, August 17, 2000

By	SEBASTIANVS "libra64" (TOKYO Japan) - See all my reviews

It is very interesting to read a this kind of book for us Japanese. However, as far as I know, we don't have a religious prejudice to homosexuality at all, therefore it sounds a little bit strange that in Meiji-era the goverment of Japan made a "Sodomy Law" imitating the western countries (though directly from the Manchurian China/Qing)---- of course it was soon repealed.
I prefer to read a book on male/male love of pre-Tokugawa period, since in those days, especially in Muromachi/Azuchi-Momoyama-period, male homoeroticism was most flourished and prosperous.
And I also want to read about the history of male-love in Korea, Tibet and Southeastern Asia.