Cartographies Of Desire

"A remarkable and sorely needed synthesis of the best of traditional historiographical documentation and critically astute analysis and contextualization. Cartographies complements and, frankly, exceeds any of the English language monographs on similar topics that precede it, and it represents significant contributions to several fields outside of East Asian history, including literature, gender studies, lesbian and gay studies, and cultural studies."—Earl Jackson Jr., author of Strategies of Deviance: Studies in Gay male Representation and Fantastic Living: The Speculative Autobiographies of Samuel R. Delany

This is the first book to explore sexualities from a geographical perspective. The nature of place and notions of space are of increasing centrality to cultural and social theory. Mapping Desire presents the rich and diverse world of contemporary sexuality, exploring how the heterosexual body has been appropriated and resisted on the individual, community and city scales. The geographies presented here range across Europe, America, Australasia, Africa, the Pacific and the imaginary, cutting across city and country and analysing the positions of gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and heterosexuals. The contributors ring different interests and approaches to bear on theoretical and empirical material from a wide range of sources. The book is divided into four sections: cartographies/identities; sexualised spaces: global/local; sexualised spaces: local/global; sites of resistance. Each section is separately introduced. Beyond the bibliography, an annotated guide to further reading is also provided to help the reader map their own way through the literature.

By addressing questions of culture, identity and politics, Cartographies of Diaspora throws new light on discussions about `difference' and `diversity', informed by feminism and post-structuralism. It examines these themes by exploring the intersections of `race', gender, class, sexuality, ethnicity, generation and nationalism in different discourses, practices and political contexts. The first three chapters map the emergence of `Asian' as a racialized category in post-war British popular and political discourse and state practices. It documents Asian cultural and political responses paying particular attention to the role of gender and generation. The remaining six chapters analyse the debate on `difference', `diversity' and `diaspora' across different sites, but mainly within feminism, anti-racism, and post-structuralism.

Includes material on "two recurring literary and cultural figures--the white woman taken captive by Indians and the welcoming Indian maiden..."

Erotic Cartographies uses subjective mapping, a participatory data collection technique, to demonstrate how Trinidadian same-sex-loving women use their gender performance, erotic autonomy, and space-making practices to reinforce and resist colonial ascriptions on subject bodies. The women strategically embody their sexual identities to challenge imposed subject categories and to contest their invisibility and exclusion from discourses of belonging. Erotic Cartographies refers to the processes of mapping territories of self-knowing and self-expression, both cognitively in the imagination and on paper during the mapping exercise, exploring how meaning is given to space, and how it is transformed. Using the women’s quotes and maps, the book focuses on the false binary of public-private, the practices of home and family, and religious nationalism and spiritual self-seeking, to demonstrate the women’s challenges to the structural, symbolic, and interpersonal violence of colonial discourses and practices related to gender, knowledge, and power in Trinidadian society.

Tokugawa Japan ranks with ancient Athens as a society that not only tolerated, but celebrated, male homosexual behavior. Few scholars have seriously studied the subject, and until now none have satisfactorily explained the origins of the tradition or elucidated how its conventions reflected class structure and gender roles. Gary P. Leupp fills the gap with a dynamic examination of the origins and nature of the tradition. Based on a wealth of literary and historical documentation, this study places Tokugawa homosexuality in a global context, exploring its implications for contemporary debates on the historical construction of sexual desire. Combing through popular fiction, law codes, religious works, medical treatises, biographical material, and artistic treatments, Leupp traces the origins of pre-Tokugawa homosexual traditions among monks and samurai, then describes the emergence of homosexual practices among commoners in Tokugawa cities. He argues that it was "nurture" rather than "nature" that accounted for such conspicuous male/male sexuality and that bisexuality was more prevalent than homosexuality. Detailed, thorough, and very readable, this study is the first in English or Japanese to address so comprehensively one of the most complex and intriguing aspects of Japanese history.

Can capital be seen? Cartographies of the Absolute surveys the disparate answers to this question offered by artists, film-makers, writers and theorists over the past few decades. It zones in on the crises of representation that have accompanied the enduring crisis of capitalism, foregrounding the production of new visions and artefacts that wrestle with the vastness, invisibility and complexity of the abstractions that rule our lives.

The concept of assemblage has emerged in recent decades as a central tool for describing, analysing, and transforming dynamic systems in a variety of disciplines. Coined by Deleuze and Guattari in relation to different fields of knowledge, human practices, and nonhuman arrangements, “assemblage” is variously applied today in the arts, philosophy, and human and social sciences, forming links not only between disciplines but also between critical thought and artistic practice. Machinic Assemblages focuses on the concept’s uses, transpositions, and appropriations in the arts, bringing together the voices of artists and philosophers that have been working on and with this topic for many years with those of emerging scholar-practitioners. The volume embraces exciting new and reconceived artistic practices that discuss and challenge existing assemblages, propose new practices within given assemblages, and seek to invent totally unprecedented assemblages.

Queer Voices from Japan examines the wide range of queer voices in Japan, and the longevity that these minority communities have enjoyed in society. Mark McLelland, Katsuhiko Suganuma, and James Welker bring together historical and contemporary narratives that contribute to the study of sexual identities in Japan. These essays trace the evolution of queer voices in Japan with analyses of the presence of homosexuality in the Japanese Imperial Army, the development of Japan's first gay bars, and same-sex experiences in the pre- and post-war periods. This book offers a variety of perspectives including a range of male-to-female and female-to-male transgender voices and experiences. The broad scope of this volume makes it an invaluable text for understanding the development of Japanese sex and gender categories in the twentieth century. Queer Voices from Japan is a compelling read that will appeal to those interested in Asian studies and human sexuality.

Focuses on the process by which manually crafting interactive, hypertextual maps clarifies one’s own understanding, communicates it to others, and enables collective intelligence. The authors see mapping software as visual tools for reading and writing in a networked age. In an information ocean, the challenge is to find meaningful patterns around which we can weave plausible narratives. Maps of concepts, discussions and arguments make the connections between ideas tangible - and critically, disputable. With 22 chapters from leading researchers and practitioners (5 of them new for this edition), the reader will find the current state-of-the-art in the field. Part 1 focuses on knowledge maps for learning and teaching in schools and universities, before Part 2 turns to knowledge maps for information analysis and knowledge management in professional communities, but with many cross-cutting themes: · reflective practitioners documenting the most effective ways to map · conceptual frameworks for evaluating representations · real world case studies showing added value for professionals · more experimental case studies from research and education · visual languages, many of which work on both paper and with software · knowledge cartography software, much of it freely available and open source · visit the companion website for extra resources: books.kmi.open.ac.uk/knowledge-cartography Knowledge Cartography will be of interest to learners, educators, and researchers in all disciplines, as well as policy analysts, scenario planners, knowledge managers and team facilitators. Practitioners will find new perspectives and tools to expand their repertoire, while researchers will find rich enough conceptual grounding for further scholarship.