HOW THE MODERN SUBJECT DANCES INTO SIGHT: MORI ÔGAI'S MAIHIME

Event details
Speaker : Dr Scot Hislop
               Visiting Fellow, Department of Japanese Studies, NUS
Date      : Friday, 7 September 2007
Time      : 2:00pm - 3:00pm
Venue    : AS4/03-28 (JS Meeting Room)

Abstract

Mori Ôgai's Maihime (The Dancing Girl) is, as Karatani Kôjin argued, an important moment in the creation of modern Japanese literature. One of the reasons for this is that it is an important site at which the incipient modern subject can be queried; in particular, it reveals a great deal about the textual construction of gender and subjectivity in late 19th century Japan. The narrator of the text tells of a failed relationship with a German woman (the dancing girl of the title), a failure which parallels his failure to become a modern individual. What the narrator remains blind to is that his failure was predestined because in order to become a modern male individual, he must rigorously abject that which he defines as feminine. The only way he can abject the feminine is by passively agreeing to give up his relationship with the dancing girl and return to Japan. Yet, for him, passivity is feminine. So he can not abject the feminine from himself without at the same time confirming and embracing the feminine. This double bind, rather than love for the abandoned dancing girl, is what informs his melancholy as he narrates the text and the story can be read less as a narrative of failed individuality than one about the contradictions of modern subjectivity.