Women's History and Local Community in Postwar Japan: 11 (Routledge/Asian Studies Association of Australia ASAA East Asian Series)

Gayle, Curtis Anderson

ISBN 10: 0415559391 / ISBN 13: 9780415559393

Published by Routledge, 2009

About this Item

Examines the emergence of women's history-writing groups in Japan in the decade following the end of World War II and the way in which these versions of history-writing went on to subsequently eclipse and outlive those being offered by Marxist historians. Series: Routledge/Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA) East Asian Series. Num Pages: 208 pages, 2 black & white illustrations, 2 black & white line drawings. BIC Classification: 1FPJ; 3JJP; HBTB; JFSJ1. Category: (UP) Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly. Dimension: 241 x 164 x 18. Weight in Grams: 448. . 2009. 1st Edition. hardcover. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland.

Seller Inventory # V9780415559393

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Women's History and Local Community in Postwar Japan: 11 (Routledge/Asian Studies Association of Australia ASAA East Asian Series)
• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication Date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0415559391
• ISBN 13: 9780415559393
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

This timely look at a neglected corner of Japanese historiography spotlights the decade following the end of World War II, a time in which Japanese society was undergoing the transformation from imperial state to democratic nation. For certain working and middle-class women involved in education and labor activism, history-writing became a means to greater voice within the turbulent transition.

Women's History and Local Community in Postwar Japan examines the emergence of women’s history-writing groups in Tokyo, Nagoya and Ehime, using interviews conducted with founding members and analysis of primary documents and publications by each group. It demonstrates how women appropriated history-writing as a radical praxis geared less toward revolution and more toward the articulation of local imaginations, spaces and memories after World War II. By appropriating history as a praxis that did not need revolution for its success, these women used connections established by Marxist historians between history-writing and subjectivity, but did so in ways that broke rank from nationally-referenced renditions of history and memory. Under conditions in which some women saw history as a field of articulation that remained dominated by men, they put into practice their own de-centered versions of history-writing that continue to influence the historical landscape in contemporary Japan.

About the Author

Curtis Anderson Gayle is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Integrated Arts & Social Sciences at Japan Women’s University, in Tokyo. He is the author of Marxist History and Postwar Japanese Nationalism (Routledge 2002) and specializes in modern Japanese history and comparative culture.