Gender and National Literature

“[T]hose who are . . . interested in direct study and translation of Heian prose and poetry will learn a great deal from this bold and erudite volume.” - John T. Carpenter , Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society

“This book indeed meets one’s expectation. By foregrounding many critical issues, it will stimulate many discussions on the status of classical Japanese literature in our age.” - Atsuko Sakaki , Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies

"[L]ucid and fascinating. . . . [A]n impressive display of how productive a deep engagement between modern theoretical perspectives and Heian texts can be." - Dennis Washburn , MLQ

"Amid growing scholarship on the intervention of Japanese national tradition, Tomiko Yoda's work sets a new standard. Her brilliant analysis of modern Japanese discourses on Heian literature exposes and challenges the process through which the discipline gendered literature. . . . Yoda has written a groundbreaking work indispensable not only for Japanese studies but for East Asian and Western cultural studies as well." - Seiko Yoshinaga, Journal of Asian Studies

“I can think of few other scholarly monographs that have taught us as much about the historical significance of the study of classical ‘literature’ in modernity. The narrative texts of Heian Japan have never received more meticulous and rigorous scrutiny achieved with such sheer intelligence. Tomiko Yoda succeeds in speaking to interdisciplinary and international audiences about why the institution of ‘literature’ had to serve a crucial role in the manufacture of specifically gendered subjects of the nation and how the pronominal categories had to be invented in order to newly designate modern subjects. She has laid a cornerstone in the literary studies of modernity, which the cultural studies of Japan, East Asia, and Europe can no longer ignore. This is a remarkable achievement.” - Naoki Sakai, Cornell University

“Keenly, lucidly, thoroughly, Gender and National Literature shows how the modern feminization of Heian literature did not simply parallel the formation of the modern subject in Japan, but proved integral to it. Tomiko Yoda thus issues a profound challenge to the received wisdom about the femininity and the ‘women’ of classical literature. And her response is brilliant: turning to the materiality of the Heian text, Yoda poses new readings that take the question of gender far beyond previous studies of Heian and modern Japanese literature.” - Thomas LaMarre, author of Uncovering Heian Japan: An Archaeology of Sensation and Inscription