行政院國家科學委員會補助專題研究計畫成果報告
計畫名稱：膚「色」慾望、性「別」身體、以及大衛．村作品對日美族群
男性身份的重寫
計畫類別：個別型計畫
計畫編號：NSC89－2411－H－003－062
執行期間：89 年 08 月 01 日至 90 年 07 月 31 日
計畫主持人：李秀娟
本成果報告包括以下應繳交之附件：無
執行單位：國立臺灣師範大學英語學系
日期：中華民國 90 年 10 月 31 日
行政院國家科學委員會專題研究計畫成果報告
膚「色」慾望、性「別」身體、以及
大衛．村作品對日美族群男性身份的重寫
Color ed Desir e, Gender ed Bodies, and
David Mur a’s Re-Wr iting of the J apanese Amer ican Manhood
計畫編號：NSC 89-2411-H-003-062
執行期限：89 年 8 月 1 日至 90 年 7 月 31 日
主持人：李秀娟 國立台灣師範大學英語系
一、 中文摘要 亞洲和亞裔美籍男性的「女性化」 （feminization）長期以來一直是亞美文學研究 中備受關注的議題。當然，相對於白人當權文化 所被賦予的「男性」特質，亞美男性在樣板印象 中的「去勢」（emasculation）與「女性化」激 起了亞美成員爭取、證明其「男性身份」的努力。 可以說，打從七○年代亞美文化國族運動以來， 亞美研究即籠罩在追尋亞美男性雄風的氛圍中， 以建立擺脫女性印記之亞美男性主體為職志。問 題是，這樣汲汲追求男性主體性不免重入「男尊 女卑」的傳統父權陷阱，而一味強調男性主體更 造成對亞美社群中性別政治的忽視。本計畫由分 析瀰漫亞美研究的雄性情結（masculinity complex） 下手，思索亞美男性不再「害怕成為女人」的可 能性及意義：亞美男性如何可以掙脫「雄性」教 條以及以白種男人為理想的自我鏡像？「雄性情 結」的產生和亞美種族位置有何相關？膚「色」 慾望和性「別」身體如何相謀為奸？一個擺脫雄 性教條的多元亞美性「別」想像又將如何被呈現？ 結合亞美研究中的種族和性別議題，本計畫 探討日裔美籍作家大衛．村（David Mura）的作 品對日美男性特質的改寫。直言之，大衛．村作 品以其企圖建立不歧視女性的的亞美男性身份， 想像不自許於女性特質之外、之上的男性特質而 別具研究價值。相對於大多數亞美男性作家對確 立自己男性身份的汲汲努力，大衛．村在追求日 美男性主體性時不但不以強調自己「不是女人」 為手段，反而不斷正視、甚至挖掘長久以來為了 證明自己是「美國人」及「男人」而壓抑的、原 本涵納於自己身體中陰柔的、女性的成份。在《男 人的痛：色情書報與上癮手記》（1987）裡，他 分析亞美男性追逐男性身份背後的「雄性情節」 （masculinity complex）。在《慾望的顏色：詩集》 （1995）裡，大衛．村進一步詮釋種族與性別位 置、膚色與慾望之間複雜的關係。在自傳式的《當 身體撞見記憶：種族、性意識、與身份的漂泊之 旅》（1996）一書中，他則藉由回憶剖析其日美 社群、家族、及個人的歷史，宏觀地呈現日裔美 籍三世代（Issei, Nisei, and Sansei）的慾望旅行。 最重要的是，在《變成日本人：一個第三代日裔 美籍人的回憶錄》（1991）書中，他描述自己旅 居日本一年的經驗，指出他的日美跨國旅行不僅 重新聯繫了他的美國國家認同與日本血緣臍帶， 更喚起了他身體中長久以來被壓抑的陰柔與女性 認同潛力。在大衛．村的作品中，身體和慾望提 供日美族群斡旋其岌岌可危的男性身份、其尚待 發掘的陰性潛能、以及最根本的其日裔美籍族群 屬性之場域。藉由聯繫起一個人的種族位階和其 「性」向與慾望的問題，大衛．村探討日裔美籍 男性慾望發展的糾結與多面。 關鍵詞：大衛．村、性別政治、身體政治、種族 屬性、男性特質、女性化、女性特質、亞美文學、 日美文學 Abstr actThe “feminization” of Asian or Asian American male has long been an issue of critical concern in Asian American studies. The stereotyped image of Asian American males as “feminized” or
“emasculated” has aroused the urgency among Asian American men to re-claim their masculinity. In a sense, ever since the Asian American cultural nationalist movement in the 1970s, Asian American discourse has been haunted by the gender norm of masculinity, not to mention its reinforcement of misogyny by casting masculinity and femininity into conventional hierarchal dualism. Querying into the masculinity complex of Asian American studies, this project raises and tries to answer the following questions: what if Asian American men are no more afraid of being “women”? What if manhood is no longer a binding principle or a projected ideal mirror image against which Asian American men suffer perpetually from a sense of inferiority and inadequacy? Besides, how is the pursuit of manhood related to the racial status of Asian Americans? In what way are “gendered bodies” side-products of “colored desires” and to what extent does the reinforcement of the former consolidate the latter? Finally, what does it mean for Asian Americans to be released from their masculinity complex and conceive a non-singular and non-unified Asian American sexuality?
racial and gender configuring of Asian American men with intent to conceive an Asian American male subjectivity that relies not as much on Asian American men’s pursuit of a masculinity in opposition to femininity as on their exploration into their feminine underside. David Mura is chosen as a case of study not only because he is one of the few Asian American writers who dare tackle the sexual desire of Asian American men but also because in many contexts he attempts to “queer up” Asian American masculinity through an exploration of the femininity embedded in his body. Correlating his sexuality to his racial status, Mura traces in his major works the trajectory of his desire: A Male Grief: Notes on Pornography and Addiction: An Essay
(1987) explores Japanese American men’s masculinity complex; several poems in The Color of Desire: Poems (1995) further the subject of racial gendering and colored sexuality; the autobiographical
Where the Body Meets Memory: An Odyssey of Race, Sexuality, and Identity (1996) then panoramically examines the sexual odyssey of Japanese Americans vis-à-vis their racial position. And most essential to my analysis is Turning Japanese: Memoirs of a Sansei (1991), in which Mura’s travel beyond the U.S. borders returns him to his suppressed parental link to Japan, invokes his reconsideration of the nationalist boundary of the Asian American, re-initiates his investigation of the in-betweenness embedded in his Japanese American identity, and most intriguingly conjures up the feminine part of his body and desire which has long been silenced by his masculinity complex. It is my argument that Mura challenges the conventional idea of masculinity and in this doing launches a radical re-thinking of Asian American male subjectivity through his attempt to “work through” his “gendered body” and “colored desire.”
Keywor ds: David Mura, gender politics, body
politics, racial identity, masculinity, feminization, femininity, Asian American literature, Japanese American literature
二、 緣由與目的
The sexuality of Asian or Asian American male has long been a problematic. While Asian women are usually conceived by the West to be the symbols of sex, Asian and Asian American males are effeminized or even desexualized. In David Mura’s words, Asian American men are the “eunuchs” whose bodies are “missing” in the “black-white dichotomy” (Where the Body Meets Memory 17, 167). Russell Leong further asserts that Asian American males “have been usually scripted as neutered objects”: “[r]acist myths and assumptions about smaller stature, smaller penises, smaller eyes— and less sexual and erotic
drive— have stymied the development and acceptance of Asian American men as full erotic beings” ( “Forward,” On a Bed of Rice xxviii, xviii). Indeed, it was not until in the 1990s that the study of
Asian American male sexuality started to gain importance in Asian American literary research. The publication of the anthology On a Bed of Rice: An Asian American Erotic Feast in 1995 marks the growing critical attention to the issues of Asian American gender and sexuality. Since race and ethnicity are entangled with gender and sexuality, Asian American studies are not complete without an exploration into the sexual desires of Asian
Americans. Here, this project chooses to study David Mura for at least two reasons. First, although the revocation of Asian American masculinity has long been an issue of concern in Asian American literary history, most writers, confined to the image of Asian Americans as “model minority,” take male sexuality as a taboo topic and limit their study to how Asian American male resumes sociopolitical power. In fact, Mura is one of the few Asian American writers who tackle the sexual desire of Asian American men.
Shedding light on the racist structure of the Japanese American male sexuality, Mura is a pioneer writer in exploring Asian American male eroticism. Secondly, when conceiving an Asian American masculinity, Mura is not constrained by his masculinity complex. That is, instead of privileging masculinity over femininity, Mura in many contexts explores the femininity embedded in his male subjectivity. In Cixous’s words, Mura is a man who does not “fear being a woman” (The Newly Born Woman 85). He significantly achieves a “working-through” of the Asian American masculinity complex in his re-writing of the Japanese American manhood.
While the study of Asian American sexuality has gained increasing attention in current Asian American literary studies, major researches on Mura are yet to be done, partly because he is still a rising figure in Japanese American literature and partly because he deals with an unconventional subject matter— the Asian American male sexual desire— in literary history. My project on Mura’s re-writing of Japanese American manhood is new be it in the research on Mura as an individual author or in the study of Japanese American male subjectivity. In addition to a close analysis of Mura’s texts, I would draw upon existing essays on Asian American gender and sexual politics for references: Dana Y. Takagi’s “Maiden Voyage: Excursion into Sexuality and Identity Politics in Asian America” (1994), Russell C. Leong’s “Dimensions of Desire” (1994), Thomas K. Nakayama’s “Show/Down Time: ‘Race,’ Gender, Sexuality, and Popular Culture” (1994), Jinqi Ling’s “Identity Crisis and Gender Politics: Reappropriating Asian American Masculinity” (1997), and King-kok Cheung’s “Of Mice and Men: Reconstructing Chinese American Masculinity” (1998) all serve as important points of departure for my research. To be
consulted are also book-length works from different fields that inform my research: Cheung, ed. An Interethnic Companion to Asian American Literature
(1996), Josephine Lee et al., eds. Performing Asian America: Race and Ethnicity on the Contemporary Stage (1997), Sheng-Mei Ma’s Immigrant
Subjectivities: In Asian American and Asian Diaspora Literatures (1998), Leilani Linda Nishime’s Creating Race: Genre and the Cultural Construction of Asian American Identity (1997), and Traise Yamamoto’s Masking Selves, Making Subjects: Japanese American Women, Identity, and the Body (1999) feature some of the most updated studies on Asian American ethnicity, race and sexuality. David Buchbinder’s Performance Anxieties: Re-Producing Masculinity (1998), Kaja Silverman’s Male
Subjectivity at the Margins (1992), Andrew Perchuk and Michael G. Posner, eds. The Masculine
Masquerade: Masculinity and Representation (1995), and Harry Stecopoulos and Michael Uebel, eds. Race and the Subject of Masculinities (1997)— among others— correlate the study of masculinity with researches on social and racial minority. Besides these, I would consult theories on gender and body politics, as race and masculinity are inextricably intertwined with gender and body politics. Felipe Smith’s American Body Politics: Race, Gender, and Black Literary Renaissance (1998), Aihwa Ong and Michael G. Peletz, eds. Bewitching Women, Pious Men: Gender and Body Politics in Southeast Asia (1995), and Anne Fausto-Sterling’s Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality (2000), etc.— though not taking Japanese American literature as their main object of investigation— still shed light on Mura’s use of his Japanese American male body as a space to negotiate the ambiguity of his race, gender, and sexual desire.
Basically, this project aims to weave the studies of race, gender, body, and sexuality. Attempting to conceive an Asian American manhood without committing sexism, my research intends to find a new way to imagine— or, say, to “queer” up— masculinity. Indeed, one goal of my study is to point out that the establishment of an Asian American male subjectivity depends not so much on Asian American men’s pursuit of a masculinity in opposition to femininity as on their exploration into their feminine underside. Put another way, it is by transgressing their “gendered bodies” and “colored desire” that they venture beyond the stereotyped gender positions to which they are assigned. Besides, since male sexuality still forms a new and challenging field in Asian American literary study, it is also my hope that my analysis of Mura and Japanese American manhood can arouse more critical attention to similar topics. Moreover, having studied the identity and gender politics in Asian American literature for several years, I myself would like to take this project as my first step out of my former research efforts on women and femininity. It is my hope that the study of David Mura can pave my way to completing a project of larger scale on Asian American sexuality.
三、 結果與討論
本計畫研究成果涵蓋以下三部份：
1. 對亞美男性主體論述的背景研究：在這部份我 分析朱路易（Louis Chu）、趙健秀（Frank Chin）、 黃哲倫（David Henry Huang）等人的文學作品及 批評論述，指出主流亞美男性論述中的「雄性情 節」。我並且參酌亞美女性學者如 Elaine H Kim (1990)、Sau-ling Cynthia Wong (1992)、King-kok Cheung (1998) 的論文，探討女性學者如何和男性 中心論述對話，為亞美研究鋪陳複雜細膩的性別 政治版圖。我並且討論湯亭亭如何以女性位置思 考亞美男性主體的議題，指出亞美文化政治未嘗 必然是男、女對峙的政治。此外，我還援引、討 論 Peter Feng (1996)、Peter Chua and Diane Fujino (1999)、Jinqi Ling (1995, 1997)、Dana Y. Takagi （1994）等晚進崛起學者的著述。他們或由文學、 或由社會學觀點重新定義亞美男性主體，打破「雄 性情節」迷思，為本計畫研究提供論述基礎。 2. 對大衛．村作品的研究：在這部份我詳細分析 大衛、村具代表性的作品，指出他結合種族與性 別論述，勾勒日美社群發展史中膚「色」慾望與 性「別」身體共謀合流軌跡的努力。大衛．村指 出，亞裔美人亟於證明其男人身份的慾望和其爭 取成為正統「美國人」之少屬民族渴望互為表裡。 這個驗明正身為「男人」的慾望聯繫著亞美族群 對標示其「不同（於主流白人）」（difference） 之「黃皮膚」的在意。而除了慾望反映「膚色」， 亞美族群的身體更遭「性別」分化。畢竟不管亞 美男性是接受種族樣板印象中所被分派的「女性」 位置還是力爭「男性」身份，他們都只能在現有 父權體制男女二元對峙中做選擇，而無法探索─ ─更遑論再現──位於「男－女」性別分際之外 的肉身屬性。職是，大衛．村在其作品中揭示顛 破膚「色」慾望以及性「別」身體的重要課題， 並以自己的身體和慾望為場域搬演、改寫日美男 性特質。 3. 對當代性別論述中性別分際的研究：本計畫以 探討亞美族群男性特質為中心，在理論上和當代 性別論述進行對話，除了援引與討論 Cixous、 Freud、Silverman 等人論述，更以少數族裔論述豐 富性別論述，指出膚「色」慾望與性「別」身體 之糾葛合謀。 四、 成果自評 本計畫結合現有的種族、性別、性意識論述，並 將其應用於大衛．村的作品研究上，由追尋、探 索亞美男性中心論述到最後顛覆陽具中心、男女 二元對峙的男性身份定義，在解讀大衛．村作品、 重思亞美男性特質、以及和當代性別論述的對話 等方面均有貢獻。當然，大衛．村不斷自我質疑 的實驗性文體使本計畫倚為中心的文本分析深具 挑戰性（甚至爭議性）﹔有關大衛．村的研究即 使在國外也因仍在起步，資料較少，增加研究的 困難度，但本計畫的構思與執行也因此別具原創 性。另外，有關亞美文學性別議題的研究近年來 風起雲湧，本計畫作為個人在此領域研究的起 點，許多問題有賴日後更深入的探究。
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