Sexuality, Maternity, and (Re)Productive Futures: Women’’s Speculative Fiction in Contemporary Japan

Contemporary Japanese female speculative fiction writers of novels and manga employ the perspectives of aliens, cyborgs, and bioengineered entities to critique the social realities of women, particularly with respect to reproduction, which they also re-imagine in radical ways. Harada examines the various meanings of (re)production in light of feminist and queer studies and offers close readings of works by novelists Murata Sayaka, Ōhara Mariko, Ueda Sayuri and manga artists Hagio Moto and Shirai Yumiko. Scholarship of SF in Japanese studies has primarily focused on male authors, but this book shows not only how women writers have created a space in SF and speculative fiction but how their work can be seen as a response to particular social norms and government policies.

Kazue Harada is an Assistant Professor of Japanese at Miami University, Ohio, and earned her Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis in 2015. Her research focus is contemporary Japanese speculative and science fiction with an exploration of gender and sexuality. Her articles have appeared in U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal, Japanese Language and Literature, and Japanese Studies.