The Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures presents "Fetishism, Temporality, and Reading: Tanizaki Jun'ichiro's Historical Novella 'The Secret History of Lord Mushashi'" with Dr. James Reichert (Stanford University).
Popular writer, Tanizaki Jun’ichirō, began serialization of his historical novel, The Secret History of Lord Musashi, in 1931, right as Japan descended into militarism and authoritarianism. This tale recounts a medieval warlord’s sexual fantasies involving the heads of decapitated warriors. Employing the logic of the fetish, this talk will explore how this baffling work engages with the rhetoric of Japanese imperialism of the 1930s.
James Reichert’s field of specialization is early modern and modern Japanese literature. He is the author of In the Company of Men: Representations of Male-Male Sexuality in Meiji Literature (Stanford University Press, 2006), and numerous articles on gender and sexuality in literature, cinema and popular textual media.
SPONSORED BY EAST ASIAN LANGUAGES AND CULTURES, EAST ASIAN STUDIES, AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE