Research Catalog

Title

Touching the unreachable : writing, skinship, modern Japan / Fusako Innami.

Author

Innami, Fusako, 1983-

Publication

• Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2021.
• ©2021

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

x, 240 pages; 24 cm.

Summary

Fusako Innami offers the first comprehensive study of touch and skinship-relationality with the other through the skin-in modern Japanese writing. The concept of the unreachable-that is, the lack of characters' complete ability to touch what they try to reach for-provides a critical intervention on the issue of intimacy. Touch has been philosophically addressed in France, but literature is an effective-or possibly the most productive-venue for exploring touch in Japan, as literary texts depict what the characters may be concerned with but may not necessarily say out loud. Such a moment of capturing the gap between the felt and the said-the interaction between the body and language-can be effectively analyzed by paying attention to layers of verbalization, or indeed translation, by characters' utterances, authors' depictions, and readers' interpretations. Each of the writers discussed in this book-starting with Nobel prize winner Kawabata Yasunari, Tanizaki Jun'ichirō, Yoshiyuki Junnosuke, and Matsuura Rieko-presents a particular obsession with objects or relationality to the other constructed via the desire for touch. In Touching the Unreachable, phenomenological and psychoanalytical approaches are cross-culturally interrogated in engaging with literary touch to constantly challenge what may seem like the limit of transferability regarding concepts, words, and practices. The book thereby not only bridges cultural gaps beyond geographic and linguistic constraints, but also aims to decentralize a Eurocentric hegemony in its production and use of theories and brings Japanese cultural and literary analyses into further productive and stimulating intellectual dialogues. Through close readings of the authors' treatment of touch, Innami develops a theoretical framework with which to examine intersensorial bodies interacting with objects and the environment through touch

Series Statement

Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies ; number 91

Uniform Title

Michigan monograph series in Japanese studies ; no. 91.

Subject

• 1900-1999
• Japanese literature > 20th century > History and criticism
• Touch in literature
• Japanese literature

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 209-226) and index

Contents

Introduction : literary touch to mediate the senses -- Loved object : the unreachable -- Touch in plays of distance, shadow, light -- Mediated touch : membrane, skin the "I" -- Renewing relationship through hte skin -- Conclusion : touching through language

Call Number

JFE 21-8009

ISBN

• 0472054988
• 9780472054985
• 0472074989
• 9780472074983

OCLC

1233163672

Author

Innami, Fusako, 1983- author.

Title

Touching the unreachable : writing, skinship, modern Japan / Fusako Innami.

Publisher

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2021.

Copyright Date

©2021

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies ; number 91

Michigan monograph series in Japanese studies ; no. 91.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 209-226) and index

Chronological Term

1900-1999

Research Call Number

JFE 21-8009