Yamakawa Kikue and Edward Carpenter

This chapter focuses on the translation of Edward Carpenter (1844–1929) by Yamakawa Kikue (1890–1980) in the early 1910s and the influence on Japanese feminism of the writings of this thinker. While some writings on sexuality in Japan have lumped Carpenter with sexologists who were seen to have brought restrictions upon a premodern flexibility about same-sex relations, we see instead a modernist and international queer discourse to which many connected themselves and through which ideas about sexuality and social ethics were linked and developed. The chapter focuses especially on personal affiliations and translation, as understood through Carpenter’s correspondence with Japanese thinkers and Yamakawa’s personal observations in the feminist community of the Taishō era (1912–1926). Through analysis of rhetorical style and translation choices, this chapter explores the international and interpersonal dynamics of 1920s Japanese feminisms.