Japanese Animal-Wife Tales

Narrating Gender Reality in Japanese Folktale Tradition

Fumihiko Kobayashi author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Peter Lang Publishing Inc

Published:17th Dec '14

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Japanese Animal-Wife Tales cover

A familiar, beloved, and yet misunderstood character in the Japanese folktale tradition is the animal-woman, an earthly animal that assumes the form of a female human. In order to articulate the characteristics that make Japanese Animal-Wife tales unique, this trailblazing book Japanese Animal-Wife Tales: Narrating Gender Reality in Japanese Folktale Tradition challenges long-held characterizations of them in folklore scholarship. By re-examining the gender-specific behaviors of both the animal-woman and her human spouse, the book recovers the sociocultural and historical contexts that underlay their behaviors to demonstrate the actual gender characteristics that shaped the original Japanese Animal-Wife tales, highlighting the assertive, rather than naïve, personality of women in early Japanese folktale tradition. This new approach to the study of Japanese folktales and culture will interest researchers and students in a variety of fields, including Japanese studies, comparative folklore studies, culture studies, Asian studies, and anthropology.

"Japanese Animal-Wife Tales is an instructive book particularly for cross-cultural analysis of the themes of animal-wife tales in Japan, Scotland, and Korea. It is recommended to anyone who is interested in animal-wife folktales and folktales in general." (Noriko T. Reider, Western Folklore 75.2)

ISBN: 9781433126918

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 420g

198 pages

New edition