Queer Intimacies and Cultural Dissent in Japanese Life: Quiet Subversion offers an intimate cartography of LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, and others) expression across contemporary Japan.
Featuring over 100 profiles of activists, artists, politicians, scholars, theologians, manga creators, and media figures, this book introduces “quiet subversion” as a methodological framework for understanding how dissent operates through ambiguity, relational care, satire, and refusal. Writing as both a scholar and tōjisha (insider), the author analyzes personal testimonies, cultural texts, and public interventions to document the strategies that sustain queer life under social constraints. Moving beyond conventional survey approaches, the book presents firsthand accounts of how LGBTQ+ individuals navigate Japanese social structures while creating spaces for authentic expression.
Queer Intimacies and Cultural Dissent in Japanese Life: Quiet Subversion is essential reading for undergraduate and graduate students in Queer Studies, Asian Studies, and Media Studies, as well as researchers exploring the intersections of identity, resistance, and cultural production in contemporary Japan.
By:
Masami Tamagawa
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9781032981437
ISBN 10: 1032981431
Pages: 316
Publication Date: 29 December 2025
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming
Introduction: Quiet Subversion—Voicing the Queer Present in Japan 1. Voice as Praxis—Queer Critique and Allyship Across Japan’s Institutions 2. Resonant Bodies— Art, Affect, and Queer Voice in Japanese Cultural Activism 3. Queer Frames—The Aesthetics and Politics of Japanese LGBTQ+ Cinema 4. Queer Aesthetics in Japanese Manga—Voices, Visibilities, and Intimate Worlds 5. Words Against Silence—The Political Power of Queer Writing in Japan 6. Solitary Dances of Identity—Queer Introspection in Japanese Fiction 7. Entwined Lives, Hidden Desires—Queer Relationality and Desire in Fiction 8. Queer Interventions in the Japanese State—Political Advocacy and the Rewriting of Representation 9. LGBTQ+ Scholars in Japan—Bending Epistemologies and Expanding Horizons 10. Queer Across Borders—Japanese LGBTQ+ Lives in the Diaspora Conclusion: Quiet Subversion and the Echo of Voice Postscript: On Listening Forward
Masami Tamagawa is Senior Teaching Professor of Japanese at Skidmore College, USA. His research focuses on the lived experiences of LGBTQ+ individuals in Japan, queer diaspora, and cultural activism. He is the author of The Japanese LGBTQ+ Community in the World (Routledge, 2022).
