Public Lecture by Prof Kenko Kawasaki
About the event
Modernism in the Twenty-first Century: Edogawa Ranpo, Mishima Yukio, the Takarazuka All-Girl Revue and Adapting the Queer Mystery The Black Lizard
The Black Lizard is a cat-and-mouse action drama involving the fictional detective Akechi Kogorō and a beautiful woman thief, who dresses as a man, known as “The Black Lizard.” The work created controversy during the 1930s in Japan, an era characterized by ero-guro-nansensu, which borrows from the English terms, erotic, grotesque and nonsense. Written by Edogawa Ranpo and published in 1934, the novel, which featured a series of fascinating motifs such as cross-dressing, the transformation of human bodies into doll-like figures and a criminal-detective love affair, was adapted as a three-act play in 1961 by novelist, Mishima Yukio.
Mishima’s aesthetically sophisticated drama was adapted for film in 1962 starring Kyō Machiko and again in 1968 with Miwa Akihiro, while stage productions included for the contemporary Shinpa Theatre and the Takarazuka All-Girl Revue. Each, however, featured cross-dressing, the transformation of human bodies and queer desire. Focusing on the keywords “queer,” “mystery”, and “adaptation,” this presentation will draw on the various adaptions of The Black Lizard to explore Japanese modernism, including modernism variants into the twenty-first century.
The lecture will be delivered in English, followed by a networking session.
Registrations will close on 16 August.
About the speaker
Kenko Kawasaki, PhD, is a Research Fellow at Nihon University in Tokyo, Japan, and a Visiting Researcher at the Japanese Studies Center, Tsinghua University, China. Her research focuses on Modernism in Japanese literature from the 1920s to the 21st century and issues related to gender and sexuality, especially shōjo culture. She has also investigated the correlation and conflict between propaganda, censorship, and military intelligence, on the one hand, and literary, cinematic, and theatrical expression, on the other. Kawasaki was the recipient of the 1995 Suntory Academy Award for Their Showa: Hasegawa Kaitarō, Rinjirō, Shun, Shirō. She is the author of monographs entitled Osaki Midori: Beyond the Dunes (2010), Her Other Persona: Li Xianglan/ Yamaguchi Yoshiko / Shirley Yamaguchi"(2019), Takarazuka: The Transformation of Japanese Modernism (2020), Cinema and literary identities: Reading modern Japanese literature through Dr. Caligari (2024), and Chika Sagawa (2025). Her article entitled “Girls (and Boys) Debating Democracy in Aoi sanmyaku” appeared in Japanese Studies Volume 42, Issue 3, 2022.
