Book launchTuesday 1 March 2016
6:00pm – 7:00pm
Femininity, Self-Harm and Eating Disorders in Japan: Navigating contradiction in narrative and visual culture
Drinks reception from 7:00pm
13/14 Cornwall Terrace, Outer Circle (entrance facing Regent's Park), London NW1 4QP
Organised by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation
By Gitte Marianne Hansen
Published by Routledge
From the 1980s onwards, the incidence of eating disorders and self-harm has been on the rise amongst Japanese women. Mirroring this, women’s self-directed violence is a theme increasingly seen in Japanese narrative and visual cultures.
Dr Gitte Marianne Hansen will discuss the relationship between normative femininity and women’s self-directed violence in contemporary Japanese culture. She will explore the paradoxical roles of women, demonstrating how eating disorders and self-harm have become a standardised form of entertainment as part of a “female lifestyle.” Looking at novels, artwork, manga, anime, TV dramas and news stories, Dr Hansen investigates this phenomenon of self-directed violence in both globally well-known Japanese culture such as Haruki Murakami’s literary works and Hayao Miyazaki’s animation, as well as culture unavailable to non-Japanese readers.
Hear how women’s private struggles with their own bodies have now become public discourse, available for consumption as entertainment and lifestyle products.
Download event audio hereAbout the contributors
Dr Gitte Marianne Hansen
Dr Gitte Marianne Hansen is a Lecturer in Japanese Studies at Newcastle University and an Associated Researcher at Nordic Institute of Asia Studies (NIAS), University of Copenhagen. She holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge. From 2004 to 2008, she studied and worked as a Teaching and Research Assistant to Professor Norihiro Katō at Waseda University in Tokyo. Her work focuses on Japanese culture since 1980, especially issues related to gender and character construction in literature, manga and other forms of narrative and visual culture. Her current project focuses on women and female characters in the world of Haruki Murakami. Femininity, Self-harm and Eating Disorders in Japan: Navigating contradiction in narrative and visual culture (Routledge, 2016) is her first book.