Japan, alcoholism, and masculinity : suffering sobriety in Tokyo / Paul A. Christensen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Christensen, Paul A., 1978-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Alcoholism--Japan.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism--Japan--Tokyo.

Alcoholics--Japan--Tokyo.

Alcoholics.

Alcoholics Anonymous.

Alcoholism--Treatment--Japan--Tokyo.

Men--Japan--Tokyo.

Men.

Alcoholism--Treatment.

Japan--Tokyo.

Japan.

Physical Description:

xvi, 165 pages; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Lanham : Lexington Books, [2015]

Summary:

This book examines the ways in which alcoholism is understood, accepted, and taken on as an influential and lived aspect of identity among Japanese men. At the most general level, it explores how a subjective idea comes to be regarded as an objective and unassailable fact. Here such a process concerns how the culturally and temporally specific treatment methodology of Alcoholics Anonymous, upon which much of Japan-s other major sobriety association, Danshu-kai, is also based, has come to be the approach in Japan to diagnosing, treating, and structuring alcoholism as an aspect of individual identity. In particular, the gendered consequences, how this process transpires or is resisted by Japanese men, are considered, as they offer substantial insight into how categories of illness and disease are created, particularly the ramifications of dominant forms of such categorizations across increasingly porous cultural borders. Ramifications that become starkly obvious when Japan-s persistent connection between notions of masculinity and alcohol consumption are considered from the perspective of the sober alcoholic and sobriety group member. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction

Drying out: the painful liver

Divine drink

Sobriety and disease

Sober groupings

Moral failures

Ten yen coins

Futsū or fushigi : normally drunk and oddly sober

The imperial drunkard

Appendix: the twelve stpes, twelve traditions, and Danshukai's oath.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 153-160) and index.

ISBN:

9780739192047

0739192043

OCLC:

900194010