Proximate Remove: Queering Intimacy and Loss in The Tale of Genji: 2 (New Interventions in Japanese Studies) - Softcover

Jackson, Reginald

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520382544 ISBN 13: 9780520382541

Publisher: University of California Press, 2021

Synopsis

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How might queer theory transform our interpretations of medieval Japanese literature and how might this literature reorient the assumptions, priorities, and critical practices of queer theory? Through a close reading of The Tale of Genji, an eleventh-century text that depicts the lifestyles of aristocrats during the Heian period, A Proximate Remove explores this question by mapping the destabilizing aesthetic, affective, and phenomenological dimensions of experiencing intimacy and loss. The spatiotemporal fissures Reginald Jackson calls "proximate removes" suspend belief in prevailing structures. Beyond issues of sexuality, Genji queers in its reluctance to romanticize or reproduce a flawed social order. An understanding of this hesitation enhances how we engage with premodern texts and how we question contemporary disciplinary stances.

About this title

About the Author

Reginald Jackson is Associate Professor of Premodern Japanese Literature and Performance at the University of Michigan. He is the author of Textures of Mourning: Calligraphy, Mortality, and the Tale of Genji Scrolls.

From the Back Cover

"A brave and groundbreaking work. Jackson's 'queer' reading of The Tale of Genji--where 'queer' does not index a particular sexual identity or mode of erotic exchange but, rather, provides a provocative critical lens--throws into sharp relief practices of Heian sexual politics. Intimately researched and engagingly written."--Charlotte Eubanks, author of Miracles of Book and Body: Buddhist Textual Culture and Medieval Japan

"A Proximate Remove offers a bold and provocative reading of the eleventh-century classic The Tale of Genji. It begins the much-needed task of exposing the ideological limitations that define the parameters of existing premodern Japanese studies."--Atsuko Ueda, author of Language, Nation, Race: Linguistic Reform in Meiji Japan (1868-1912)

From the Inside Flap

"A brave and groundbreaking work. Jackson&;s 'queer' reading of The Tale of Genji&;&;where 'queer' does not index a particular sexual identity or mode of erotic exchange but, rather, provides a provocative critical lens&;&;throws into sharp relief practices of Heian sexual politics. Intimately researched and engagingly written."&;&;Charlotte Eubanks, author of Miracles of Book and Body: Buddhist Textual Culture and Medieval Japan 

 "A Proximate Remove offers a bold and provocative reading of the eleventh-century classic The Tale of Genji. It begins the much-needed task of exposing the ideological limitations that define the parameters of existing premodern Japanese studies."&;&;Atsuko Ueda, author of Language, Nation, Race: Linguistic Reform in Meiji Japan (1868-1912)
 

Edition details

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0520382544
• ISBN 13: 9780520382541
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 250