Queer Compulsions

Queer Compulsions
Author :
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages : 250
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780824861179
ISBN-13 : 0824861175
Rating : 4/5 (79 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Queer Compulsions by : Amy H. Sueyoshi

Download or read book Queer Compulsions written by Amy H. Sueyoshi and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2012-02-29 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In September 1897 Yone Noguchi (1875–1947) contemplated crafting a poem to his new love, western writer Charles Warren Stoddard. Recently arrived in California, Noguchi was in awe of the established writer and the two had struck up a passionate correspondence. Still, he viewed their relationship as doomed—not by the scandal of their same-sex affections, but their introverted dispositions and differences in background. In a poem dedicated to his “dearest Charlie,” Noguchi wrote: “Thou and I, O Charles, sit alone like two shy stars, east and west!” While confessing his love to Stoddard, Noguchi had a child (future sculptor Isamu Noguchi) with his editor, Léonie Gilmour; became engaged to Washington Post reporter Ethel Armes; and upon his return to Japan married Matsu Takeda—all within a span of seven years. According to author Amy Sueyoshi, Noguchi was not a dedicated polyamorist: He deliberately deceived the three women, to whom he either pretended or promised marriage while already married. She argues further that Noguchi’s intimacies point to little-known realities of race and sexuality in turn-of-the-century America and illuminate how Asian immigrants negotiated America’s literary and arts community. As Noguchi maneuvered through cultural and linguistic differences, his affairs additionally assert how Japanese in America could forge romantic fulfillment during a period historians describe as one of extreme sexual deprivation and discrimination for Asians, particularly in California. Moreover, Noguchi’s relationships reveal how individuals who engaged in seemingly defiant behavior could exist peaceably within prevailing moral mandates. His unexpected intimacies in fact relied upon existing social hierarchies of race, sexuality, gender, and nation that dictated appropriate and inappropriate behavior. In fact, Noguchi, Stoddard, Gilmour, and Armes at various points contributed to the ideological forces that compelled their intimate lives. Through the romantic life of Yone Noguchi, Queer Compulsions narrates how even the queerest of intimacies can more provocatively serve as a reflection of rather than a revolt from existing social inequality. In unveiling Noguchi’s interracial and same-sex affairs, it attests to the complex interaction between lived sexualities and socio-legal mores as it traces how one man negotiated affection across cultural, linguistic, and moral divides to find fulfillment in unconventional yet acceptable ways. Queer Compulsions will be a welcome contribution to Asian American, gender, and sexuality studies and the literature on male and female romantic friendships. It will also forge a provocative link between these disciplines and Asian studies.


Queer Compulsions Related Books

Queer Compulsions
Language: en
Pages: 250
Authors: Amy H. Sueyoshi
Categories: Biography & Autobiography
Type: BOOK - Published: 2012-02-29 - Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In September 1897 Yone Noguchi (1875–1947) contemplated crafting a poem to his new love, western writer Charles Warren Stoddard. Recently arrived in Californi
Selected Poems of Yone Noguchi
Language: en
Pages: 83
Authors: Yone Noguchi
Categories: Poetry
Type: BOOK - Published: 2021-03-24 - Publisher: Graphic Arts Books

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Selected Poems of Yone Noguchi (1921) is a collection of poems by Yone Noguchi. Although he is widely recognizing as a leading poet in English and Japanese of t
The American Diary of a Japanese Girl
Language: en
Pages: 152
Authors: Yoné Noguchi
Categories: Drama
Type: BOOK - Published: 2021-08-28 - Publisher: Phoemixx Classics Ebooks

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The American Diary of a Japanese Girl Yoné Noguchi - Tokio, Sept. 23rd My new page of life is dawning. A trip beyond the seas-Meriken Kenbutsu-it's not an ordi
The Story of Yoné Noguchi
Language: en
Pages: 316
Authors: Yoné Noguchi
Categories: Authors, Japanese
Type: BOOK - Published: 1914 - Publisher:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Japanese Hokkus
Language: en
Pages: 132
Authors: Yoné Noguchi
Categories:
Type: BOOK - Published: 1920 - Publisher:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK