Translating maternal violence : the discursive construction of maternal filicide in 1970s Japan / Alessandro Castellini.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Castellini, Alessandro, author.

Series:

Thinking gender in transnational times

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Takahashi, Takako, 1932-2013--Criticism and interpretation.

Takahashi, Takako.

Takahashi, Takako, 1932-2013.

Filicide--Japan--History--20th century.

Filicide.

Motherhood--Japan--History--20th century.

Motherhood.

Motherhood in literature.

Filicide in literature.

Crime--Japan--Sociological aspects.

Crime.

History.

Criticism and interpretation.

Japan.

Physical Description:

xi, 273 pages ; 22 cm.

Place of Publication:

London : Palgrave Macmillan, [2017]

Summary:

This book provides the first full-length, English-language investigation of the multiple and often contradictory ways in which mothers who kill their children were portrayed in 1970s Japan. It offers a snapshot of a historical and social moment when motherhood was being renegotiated, and maternal violence was disrupting norms of acceptable maternal behaviour. Drawing on a wide range of original archival materials, it explores three discursive sites where the image of the murderous mother assumed a distinctive visibility: media coverage of cases of maternal filicide; the rhetoric of a newly emerging women's liberation movement known as ūman ribu; and fictional works by the Japanese writer Takahashi Takako. Using translation as a theoretical tool to decentre the West as the origin of (feminist) theorizations of the maternal, it enables a transnational dialogue for imagining mothers' potential for violence. This thought-provoking work will appeal to scholars of feminist theory, cultural studies and Japanese studies.

Contents:

Filicide in the media: news coverage of mothers who kill in 1970s Japan

The Women's Liberation Movement in 1970s Japan

Contested meanings: mothers who kill and the rhetoric of ūman ribu

Filicide and maternal animosity in Takahashi Takako's early fiction

Conclusion. .

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 233-259) and index.

ISBN:

1137538813

9781137538819

OCLC:

980072516