Presenting a fresh examination of women writers and prewar ideology, this book breaks new ground in its investigation of love as a critical aspect of Japanese culture during the early to mid-twentieth century. As a literary and cultural history of love and female identity,Becoming Modern Womenfocuses on same-sex love, love marriage, and maternal lovenew terms at that time; in doing so, it shows how the idea of "woman," within the context of a vibrant print culture, was constructed through the modern experience of love. Author Michiko Suzuki's work complements current scholarship on female identities such as "Modern Girl" and "New Woman," and interprets women's fiction in conjunction with nonfiction from a range of mediaearly feminist writing, sexology books, newspapers, bestselling love treatises, native ethnology, and historiography. While illuminating the ways in which women used and challenged ideas about love, Suzuki explores the historical and ideological shifts of the period, underscoring the broader connections between gender, modernity, and nationhood.

Michiko Suzuki is Assistant Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Indiana University. She specializes in modern and contemporary Japanese literature and culture.

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Note on Names and Terms	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
Becoming Female in Modernity	p. 4
Woman, Selfhood, and Love	p. 6
A Brief History of Love	p. 8
Bluestocking and Hiratsuka Raich$	p. 10
Modern Love Ideology	p. 13
Organization of Becoming Modern Women	p. 15
Girls and Virgins
Same-Sex Love	p. 23
Introduction	p. 23
Sexology Discourse	p. 25
Bluestocking Discourse	p. 29
Girls' Culture and Yoshiya Nobuko	p. 32
Yoshiya Nobuko and the Romance of Sisterhood	p. 34
Introduction	p. 34
Flower Tales: Girls and Adolescent Love	p. 35
Two Virgins in the Attic: Alternative Adulthood	p. 42
Becoming a Virgin: Rewriting Female Development	p. 50
"Abnormal" Virgins and Pure Wives: The Future of Same-Sex Love	p. 54
The Wife's Progress
Love Marriage Ideology	p. 65
Introduction	p. 65
Love Marriage Ideology: Hiratsuka Raichō and Ellen Key	p. 68
Kuriyagawa Hakuson and the Byakuren Incident	p. 70
Love Marriage Ideology, Women Writers, and Miyamoto Yuriko	p. 75
Miyamoto Yuriko and the Nobuko Narratives	p. 79
Introduction	p. 79
Nobuko's Progress and Love Marriage Discourse	p. 81
Marriage as Disease, Divorce as Cure	p. 91
Erasing Love Marriage: The Bolshevik Wife	p. 99
Reinventing Motherhood
Maternal Love	p. 107
Introduction	p. 107
Hiratsuka Raichō and Takamure Itsue	p. 108
Nationalism and Feminism	p. 113
Maternal Love, Women Writers, and Okamoto Kanoko	p. 115
Okamoto Kanoko and the Mythic Mother	p. 118
Introduction	p. 118
From "Mother and Child" to Wheel of Life	p. 120
Becoming a Female Marebito	p. 124
National Mythopoesis: Ataka's Tale	p. 129
Becoming an Ur Mutter	p. 135
Recreating Maternal Love	p. 141
Conclusion	p. 147
Notes	p. 153
Bibliography	p. 197
Index	p. 217
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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