Wrapping a Straight Head Around the Queer

My newest additions to my Recommended Titles - Prose Translated from Japanese and on Japan web page. McLelland's works have been useful for me in that I had many of my assumptions challenged and learned much that puts what I see in anime and read in manga involving gay characters in context. I hope these works will of interest to others.

Here is the text of the addition to the page:

McLelland, Mark

Back in 2004 a gay friend who had moved a couple of years earlier to Tokyo asked for help to understand the queer scene in Japan. I told him that as a straight, white male raised in California I could not be of much direct help. Then the librarian in me took over and I sent him the links to several articles by Mark McLelland, an Australian scholar studying the topic.
I had first run into McLelland's name when I stumbled across his article "Why Are Japanese Girls' Comics full of Boys Bonking?" along with a few other works of his on the Online Bibliography of Anime and Manga Research.
After that initial email exchange from my friend wrote back to me that the documents were very helpful and of interest to some of his Japanese acquantances. As a result of his question I eventually bought several books written and edited by McLelland and found them informative. I recommend these to anyone interested in 20th century queer culture in Japan.
Note: there are other books by him which I have not read and are not listed here.

McLelland, Mark J. and Romit Dasgupta, eds Genders, Transgenders and Sexualities in Japan
This collection of essays includes a variety of topics on gender and sexuality. However many of the essays are on queer culture.

McLelland, Mark J. Male Homosexuality in Modern Japan: Cultural Myths and Social Realities
This book deals with changing representations of male homosexuality in Japan from the regular media, popular entertainment, to views within the queer community.

McLelland, Mark J. Queer Japan from the Pacific War to the Internet Age
Covering the queer subcultures from the early days of sexology publications in the 1920s to recent times. Informative on changing identities, social views and even the terminology used within the queer Demi-monde.

McLelland, Mark J., Suganuma Katsuhiko and James Welker. eds Queer Voices from Japan: First Person Narratives from Japan's Sexual Minorities
A collection of articles and essays selected from decades of Japanese publications.