Manners and Mischief: Gender, Power, and Etiquette in Japan

by Jan Bardsley (Editor), Laura Miller (Editor)

Overview

Offering a concise, entertaining snapshot of Japanese society, Manners and Mischief examines etiquette guides, advice literature, and other such instruction for behavior from the early modern period to the present day and discovers how manners do in fact make the nation. Eleven accessibly written essays consider a spectrum of cases, from the geisha party to gay bar cool, executive grooming, and good manners for subway travel. Together, they show that etiquette is much more than fussy rules for behavior. In fact the idiom of manners, packaged in conduct literature, reveals much about gender and class difference, notions of national identity, the dynamics of subversion and conformity, and more. This richly detailed work reveals how manners give meaning to everyday life and extraordinary occasions, and how they can illuminate larger social and cultural transformations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520267848
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	04/21/2011
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Jan Bardsley, Associate Professor of Japanese Humanities at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is the author of The Bluestockings of Japan: New Women Essays and Fiction from Seito, 1911–1916. Laura Miller, Eiichi Shibusawa-Seigo Arai Professor of Japanese Studies and Professor of Anthropology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, is the author of Beauty Up: Exploring Contemporary Japanese Body Aesthetics. Bardsley and Miller coedited Bad Girls of Japan.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations xi

Acknowledgments xiii

Manners and Mischief: Introduction Jan Bardsley Laura Miller 1

1 Genji Guides, or Minding Murasaki Linda H. Chance 29

2 Box-Lunch Etiquette: Conduct Guides and Kabuki Onnagata Maki Isaka 48

3 The Perfect Woman: Geisha, Etiquette, and the World of Japanese Traditional Arts Kelly M. Foreman 67

4 Mortification, Mockery, and Dissembling: Western Adventures in Japanese Etiquette Gavin James Campbell 80

5 A Dinner Party Is Not a Revolution: Space, Gender, and Hierarchy in Meiji Japan Sally A. Hastings 95

6 The Oyaji Gets a Makeover: Guides for Japanese Salarymen in the New Millennium Jan Bardsley 114

7 The Dignified Woman Who Loves to Be "Lovable" Hiroko Hirakawa 136

8 Making and Marketing Mothers: Guides to Pregnancy in Modern Japan Amanda C. Seaman 156

9 When Manners Are Not Enough: The Newspaper Advice Column and the "Etiquette" of Cultural Ideology in Contemporary Japan Janet S. Shibamoto-Smith 178

10 A Community of Manners: Advice Columns in Lesbian and Gay Magazines in Japan Hideko Abe 196

11 Behavior That Offends: Comics and Other Images of Incivility Laura Miller 219

Bibliography 251

Contributors 269

Index 273

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Manners and Mischief disdains frivolity and stands firm as an academic text for students serious about extending their anthropological knowledge of Japan."

—Japan Times

Editorial Reviews

Manners and Mischief disdains frivolity and stands firm as an academic text for students serious about extending their anthropological knowledge of Japan.

Japan Times - Kris Kosaka

With Manners and Mischief, as with their previous work, Bardsley and Miller demonstrate what commitment to serious fun can look like.

Monumenta Nipponica - Christine R. Yano