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Podcast: New Books in Anthropology
Episode: Akiko Takeyama, "Staged Seduction: Selling Dreams in a Tokyo Host Club" (Stanford UP, 2016)
Description: Welcome to Tokyo's Kabuki-chō red-light district, where Professor Akiko Takeyama started her 'affective ethnographic' fieldwork to explore the host clubs in which ambitious young men seek their fortunes by selling love, romance, companionship, and female clients look for self-satisfaction. Her book Staged Seduction: Selling Dreams in a Tokyo Host Club (Stanford UP, 2016) facilitates an intimate look at this mysterious love business, providing an insightful window into the lives of hosts, clients, club owners, and managers.With rich details from her fieldwork, Takeyama reveals that the host club is a site of aspiration, desperation, and hope, where both hosts a...