Synopses & Reviews
This comprehensive text covers the history of women and gender in Japan, Korea, and China in the early modern and modern eras by examining the dynamic histories of sexuality; gender ideology, discourse, and legal construction; marriage and the family; and the gendering of work, society, and power. The authors take the unique approach of locating gender history within a societys national history as well as describing its role in an integrated history of East Asia. In addition, this book examines the global context of historical changes in these countries and highlights cross-cultural themes that transcend national boundaries. For example, themes or concepts such as writing,” the body,” feminism,” immigration and diasporas,” and Confucianism” are part of an integrated history. The authors capture the flow of ideas, people, materials, and texts throughout these three countries in an easily accessible way for students.
Synopsis
This chronologically-organized text explores major themes in the history of gender (including politics, urban/rural lives, modernity, nationalism and war) in China, Japan and Korea, from medieval times to the present, with an emphasis on the modern era. Brief primary sources are included.
Synopsis
Gender in Modern East Asia explores the history of women and gender in China, Korea, and Japan from the seventeenth century to the present. This unique volume treats the three countries separately within each time period while also placing them in global and regional contexts. Its transnational and integrated approach connects the cultural, economic, and social developments in East Asia to what is happening across the wider world.
The text focuses specifically on the dynamic histories of sexuality; gender ideology, discourse, and legal construction; marriage and the family; and the gendering of work, society, culture, and power. Important themes and topics woven through the text include Confucianism, writing and language, the role of the state in gender construction, nationalism, sexuality and prostitution, New Women and Modern Girls, feminisms, "comfort" women, and imperialism. Accessibly written and comprehensive, Gender in Modern East Asia is a much-needed contribution to the study of the region.
About the Author
Barbara Molony is professor of history at Santa Clara University and author of numerous books and articles on gender in Japan. In addition to co-authoring
Modern East Asia (Pearson, 2012), Molony has co-edited two scholarly works on gender in Japan and Asia, written a monograph on technology and investment in prewar Japan, and is currently working on a biography of Ichikawa Fusae.
Janet Theiss is associate professor of history and director of the Asia Center at the University of Utah, and co-editor of the journal Late Imperial China. She is the author of Disgraceful Matters: The Politics of Chastity in 18th Century China (U California Press) and a number of articles on 18th century Chinese gender history.
Hyaeweol Choi is professor of Korean Studies and Gender and Cultural Studies at the Australian National University. She is the author of Gender and Mission Encounters in Korea: New Women, Old Ways (U California Press), and a forthcoming book, New Women in Colonial Korea: A Sourcebook (Routledge.)