Translating Maternal Violence: The Discursive Construction of Maternal Filicide in 1970s Japan (Thinking Gender in Transnational Times) - Hardcover

Castellini, Alessandro

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1137538813 ISBN 13: 9781137538819

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017

Synopsis

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.  

About this title

About the Author:

Alessandro Castellini is LSE Fellow in Transnational Gender Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. 

Review:

 “This groundbreaking work on the “unthinkable” phenomenon of maternal violence against children examines the ways postwar Japanese society tried to make sense of the social roles of women in a time of rapid change. Castellini incisively analyzes how the “dark side” of motherhood was represented in the press, in progressive women’s fiction, and in the Women’s Lib movement, illuminating the discursive struggle over the meaning of “woman” and “mother.” Theoretically sophisticated, based on intensive archival research, this study should be read by anyone interested in the history of motherhood in the post-WWII developed world.” (Sharalyn Orbaugh,Professor, Asian Studies, University of British Columbia)

“Translating Maternal Violence is an examination of maternal filicide in Japan in the 1970s, which opens up fascinating new perspectives on feminism, maternity, mental health, sexual violence.” (Imogen Tyler, Professor of Sociology, Lancaster University)

About this edition

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1137538813
• ISBN 13: 9781137538819
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 284