Introduction

Abstract

Shoguns, merchants, soldiers, labor union members, store clerks, homeless people, techno-geeks, hermaphrodites, and robots are all designated male. All embody some form of masculinity, however all are distinguishable from the other because each lays claim to a specific notion of what it means to be a man. This volume seeks to interrogate what it meant to embody manhood in the past and what it means today. It seeks to present various possible methodologies for attacking the problem. This volume is marked by the common effort to analyze categories assigned to men based on the theoretical implications found in the concept of gender. While recognizing the concept is overused, subject to abuse, and easily misunderstood, the chapter presents four interlocking strategies that draw on existing theoretical work, expand its implications, and promise to shed new light on men and masculinities as made in Japan from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century.