Nonencounter as Relation: Cannibals and Poison Women in the Consumption of Difference

Abstract

This article explores the possibility of comparison and relation through the notion of the “nonencounter”—a modality for placing seemingly unrelatable figures into dialogue through their synchronicities and discursive affinities. Japanese “poison woman” narratives (dokufumono) and Brazilian representations of the trope of cannibalism may share no apparent geographic or intertextual links. Nevertheless, I propose their relation through a comparative analysis of two representations of such figures in two films from the 1970s: Oshima Nagisa's In the Realm of the Senses (1976) and Nelson Pereira dos Santos's How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman (1971). By exploring this connection, this article presents a conceptual approach that rethinks the practice of reading and writing in area and comparative studies beyond a reliance on naturalized connections and discourses.