Event Title
Ennui, Sex and National Identity: Haruki Murakami as a Transnational Feminist Author
Location
Diamond 343
Start Date
30-4-2015 2:00 PM
End Date
30-4-2015 2:25 PM
Project Type
Presentation
Description
My thesis will take a three-pronged approach to the study of Murakamis life, his work and his political agenda, under the academic umbrellas of Japanese studies, English literature, and Womens Gender and Sexuality studies respectively. The project focuses specifically on The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle presumably the novel that launched his career to international heights, and the ways in which he focuses on character relationships as the driving force of the narrative. How these characters interact with each other, and themselves (consciously and subconsciously) speaks volumes about how the modern Japanese citizen situates themselves on the cusp of precipitous cultural, gendered, racial, national and capitalist planes; straddling the divide between a traditional vs. modern Japan within an increasingly globalized world. Throughout the paper I hope to weave in a critical analysis of Japanese-specific feminist issues including historical memory, colonialist narratives and gender difference among others, ultimately concluding that Murakami is in fact a feminist author whose work is making strides in the world of transnational feminist literature.
Faculty Sponsor
Sonja Thomas
Sponsoring Department
Colby College. Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program
CLAS Field of Study
Interdisciplinary Studies
Event Website
http://www.colby.edu/clas
ID
1716
Ennui, Sex and National Identity: Haruki Murakami as a Transnational Feminist Author
Diamond 343
My thesis will take a three-pronged approach to the study of Murakamis life, his work and his political agenda, under the academic umbrellas of Japanese studies, English literature, and Womens Gender and Sexuality studies respectively. The project focuses specifically on The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle presumably the novel that launched his career to international heights, and the ways in which he focuses on character relationships as the driving force of the narrative. How these characters interact with each other, and themselves (consciously and subconsciously) speaks volumes about how the modern Japanese citizen situates themselves on the cusp of precipitous cultural, gendered, racial, national and capitalist planes; straddling the divide between a traditional vs. modern Japan within an increasingly globalized world. Throughout the paper I hope to weave in a critical analysis of Japanese-specific feminist issues including historical memory, colonialist narratives and gender difference among others, ultimately concluding that Murakami is in fact a feminist author whose work is making strides in the world of transnational feminist literature.
https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/clas/2015/program/398