Event Details

This is the first in the series of scholarly talks for the Macalester Humanities Colloquium. The presenter is Satoko Suzuki, DeWitt Wallace Professor of Asian Languages and Cultures. The title of Satoko's talk will be: "Masculinity, Race, and National Identity: Representations of Non-Japanese Men’s Speech in Contemporary Japanese Novels.”

This presentation will address some aspects of the complex relationship among language, gender, race, national identity, class, and sexuality. The analysis of non-Japanese male characters found in contemporary Japanese novels reveals that authors assign strongly masculine expressions to their East Asian characters much more frequently than to their White characters. I argue that ideologies concerning cultural nationalism, racial determinism, class, and sexuality influence and are reproduced by these differentiated representations of non-Japanese male characters’ speech. The linguistic data I will discuss unsettle the constructed image of Asian males as desexualized beings and the historically assumed relationship between gendered language and authenticity.

The presentation will be held in ArtCom 102 in the Janet Wallace Fine Arts Building. Lunch, generously funded by the Provost’s Office, is available at 11:45; talks begin promptly at noon. No RSVP needed. All faculty and staff are welcome.