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PERVERSION AND MODERN JAPAN: Psychoanalysis, Literature, Culture. Routledge Contemporary Japan Series, 24. Edited by Nina Cornyetz and J. Keith Vincent. London and New York: Routledge, 2010. xiii, 338 pp. (Figures.) US$145.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-415-46910-4.
There is, still, something exciting about opening a new publication, the alluring scent of novelty (and perhaps, even transgression?) emanating from within its covers ... especially, when it features the intriguing title Perversion and Modern Japan. Potential misunderstandings are kept in check, though, by the sober subtitle Psychoanalysis, Literature, Culture and the editors' bemused disclaimer that their "choice of perversion as an organizing rubric ... was motivated ... by Freud's understanding that the status of the 'normal' as the normative rather than the natural, can best be understood by taking the perversions seriously" (3). Nina Cornyetz and Keith Vincent, both well known for their productive endeavours to establish psychoanalytic method in Japanese studies, brought together a transnational collection of research that engages with psychoanalysis, narrative and history, memory, literature, art, and film in Japan. The volume can perhaps best be described as a stimulating debate between different perspectives from within, and on, Freudian, Lacanian, Irigarayan, Deleuzian or Derridean thought and their application to a variety of Japanese subjects. It is a debate into which the reader becomes quickly immersed, although a good understanding of psychoanalytical concepts is necessary to enjoy it fully. The reader is helped by short introductions prefacing each article as well as the overall organization of the...