Maki Isaka

isaka@umn.edu

Specialties

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Specialties

Japanese theater and literature
Gender studies

Publications

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Publications

"The Gender of Onnagata As the Imitating Imitated: Its Historicity, Performativity, and Involvement in the Circulation of Femininity." positions: east asia cultures critique 10.2 (Fall 2002): 245-284. http://positions.rice.edu/Content.aspx?id=184 • Chinese translation: "Dui bei mofang zhe de mofang: 'Nüxing' de shehui xingbie--qi lishixing, caoyanxing ji qi zai nüxing tezhi chuanbo zhong de canyu." Trans. Zheng Yanfang; Checked by Zhang Ying. In Wang Zheng and Zhang Ying, editors-in-chief, Nanxing yanjiu: Masculinity Studies. Shanghai: Shanghai Sanlian Shudian, 2012. 253-291. http://baike.baidu.com/view/9456402.htm • Reprinted (English) in Gender and Japanese Society, vol.4., edited by Dolores P. Martinez. In Critical Concepts in Asian Studies series. London and New York: Routledge, 2014. 31-60. http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415507042/
Secrecy in Japanese Arts: "Secret Transmission" as a Mode of Knowledge. New York: Palgrave, 2005. http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=270020 (now available in paperback & ebook)
"Osanai Kaoru's Dilemma: 'Amateurism by Professionals' in Modern Japanese Theatre." TDR/The Drama Review 49.1 (Spring 2005): 119-133. http://www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/dram/49/1 • Italian translation: "Il dilemma di Osanai Kaoru. «Amatorismo dei professionisti» nel teatro giapponese moderno." Trans. Giuseppe Goisis. Teatro e Storia 19.26 (2005): 315-335. http://www.teatroestoria.it/indici.php?id_volume=88; Electronic edition (2007). http://www.teatroestoria.it/pdf/26/m_morinaga.pdf
"Box-Lunch Etiquette: Conduct Guides and Kabuki Onnagata." In Manners and Mischief: Gender, Power, and Etiquette in Japan. Edited by Jan Bardsley and Laura Miller. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011. 48-66. http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520267848
Onnagata: A Labyrinth of Gendering in Kabuki Theater. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2016. http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/ISAONN.html (now available in paperback & ebook)
"Women Onnagata in the Porous Labyrinth of Femininity: On Ichikawa Kumehachi I." U.S.-Japan Women's Journal 30-31 (2006): 105-131. http://www.josai.jp/jicpas/usjwj/issues/backissues/no30_31.html
"Images of Onnagata: Complicating the Binarisms, Unraveling the Labyrinth." In PostGender: Gender, Sexuality and Performativity in Japanese Culture. Edited by Ayelet Zohar. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009. 22-38. http://www.cambridgescholars.com/postgender-15
"What Could Have Happened to 'Femininity' in Japanese Stagecraft: A Memorial Address to Yamada Isuzu (1917-2012)." positions: asia critique 21.3 (Summer 2013): 755-759. http://positions.dukejournals.org/content/21/3/755.short
"Yearning for the 'West': Osanai Kaoru and the Concept of Stand-alone Dramas in Modern Japan." In A Companion to World Literature, 6 vols., edited by Ken Seigneurie (general editor). Volume 5b: 1920 to Early Twenty-First Century II, edited by B. Venkat Mani and Ken Seigneurie (volume editors). Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell (published by the Publisher John Wiley & Sons Inc.), 2020. 3379-3389. https://www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118635193.ctwl0271. For the home page of the encyclopedia at Wiley Online Library: https://www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781118635193 .

Activities

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Activities

Research

"Osanai Kaoru, modernity, and modern Japanese theater" (Osanai Kaoru is considered one of the founders of shingeki [New Theater]: This project studies his writings in terms of "modernity and Japanese theater.").
"Gender and onnagata" (Onnagata refers to male actors who perform the roles of women in the kabuki theater: This project studies how gender has been constructed, understood, and theorized in the discourse of onnagata.).
"Gei esotericism in Japanese arts" (Gei esotericism refers to "secret transmission" by which dancers, swordsmen, etc. transmitted their expertise: This project studies gei esotericism as a readable logic in its own right, not as a mysterious feature of Japanese culture.).
"Women's gidayû-music and its fandom in modern Japan" (Gidayû is vocal music providing music, narration, and characters' voices of a puppet theater, bunraku. Dating from the seventeenth century, both are now defined as all-male traditional performing a...

Courses

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Courses

ALL5433: Women's Writing in Premodern Japan in Translation
ALL3433W: Traditional Japanese Literature in Translation (Lib Ed req of Ltr [Literature Core]; WI)
JPN 5160: Topics in Japanese Literature: Secrecy in Japanese Esoteric Texts
JPN 5160: Topics in Japanese Literature: Japanese Feminisms
ALL 8920: Topics in Asian Culture: "Gendering" in Premodern Japan: AnOther Philosophy
ALL3441W: Japanese Theater (Lib Ed req of AH [Arts/Humanities Core]; WI)
ALL1911W: Mind and Muscle: Philosophy and the Martial Arts
ALL3442: Performing Arts in Japan
ALL1910W: Thinking Gender in Japanese Literature and Theater (Lib Ed req of WI)
JPN5041: Readings in Japanese Texts: Literature and Culture
ALL5446: Kabuki: A Pop, Queer, and Classical Theater in Japan
ALL5920: Topics in Asian Culture: "Cross-Gender" Performance in Japanese Theater
AMES 3420: Topics in Japanese Culture: Performing Arts and Martial Arts, AnOther Philosophy in Japan