MASAKAZU TANAKA

From Ushio Shinohara’s Motorcycle Mama, 1971 (partial)

INSTITUTION

Professional Institute of International Fashion

ACADEMIC FIELD & RESEARCH

I specialize in cultural anthropology and gender/sexuality studies. For humans, sex (sexual activity) has been liberated from being something done for the purpose of reproduction and transformed into communication accompanied by pleasure. Also linked with the liberation of sex is the emergence of sexualities that are known as polymorphous perversions, such as S&M, fetishisms, and voyeurism. Hence, where should we be looking in the history of humankind for the diversity and plasticity we see in sexuality? I am currently interested in pursuing the above topics, using the concept of the Kinky Monkey as a guiding thread.

RESEARCH FIELD (FIELD SITE, LOCATION OF RESEARCH)

・South Asia
・Japan

MAIN PUBLICATIONS/PAPERS

Tanaka M. (Ed.) Fetishism Studies: All Three Volumes. Kyoto University Press, 2009-2014. (Japanese)
Tanaka M. The Healing and the Obscene: A Cultural Anthropology of Eros. Chikuma Shobo, 2010. (Japanese)
Tanaka M et al. (Eds.) The Contact Zone Humanities: All Four Volumes. Koyo Shobo, 2010-2012. (Japanese)
Tanaka M. Seductive Cultural Anthropology. Sekaishisousha, 2018. (Japanese)
Tanaka M., Matsushima T. (Eds.) Trauma Studies: All Two Volumes. Kyoto University Press, 2018-2019. (Japanese)

COMMENTS

Since my retirement from Kyoto University last year, absence and loss have become my major concern. I am thinking of them in relation to contemporary art, fashion, mourning, and psychoanalysis.

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