Rebecca L. Copeland

Woman uncovered: pornography and power in the detective fiction of Kirino Natsuo

This article considers the way Kirino Natsuo’s Tenshi ni misuterareta yoru (The night overlooked by angels, 1994) uses pornography to unsettle readers and, by so doing, to force a critical consideration of contemporary social structures as well as the gendering of the detective genre itself. At the story level, Kirino takes readers through the dark and dangerous world of the pornography industry, where women are exploited as objects of desire. But at a deeper level Kirino questions contemporary sexuality in Japan, interrogating the agency and authenticity of female desire. By deftly juxtaposing the marriage system alongside the pornography industry and by comparing heterosexuality with homosexuality, Kirino undermines the sacrosanct position of the Japanese family and questions the institutionalization of heterosexuality. Her attempts to stretch the boundaries of gender are replicated by her efforts to question the limits of the genre. Refusing to provide readers with the typical vicarious adventure, Kirino implicates us in the voyeuristic pleasure of the detective genre, by making us conscious of our act of watching.

Lost Leaves: Women Writers of Meiji Japan@@@Women Writers of Meiji and Taisho Japan: Their Lives, Works, and Critical Reception, 1868-1926

The Meiji (1868-1912) and Taisho (1912-1926), periods in Japanese history saw changes in both the way women wrote and the way they were read. This study of the women who wrote in the modern era examines writers within the context of their moments in time and their influence on later generations of Japanese women writers.