Women's History and Local Community in Postwar Japan.

GAYLE, CURTIS ANDERSON.

ISBN 10: 0415559391 / ISBN 13: 9780415559393

Editore: Taylor & Francis., United Kingdom., 2009

Riguardo questo articolo

2 maps, 2 black & white illustrations, xv + 182pp, glossary, notes, bibliography, index, a very good hardback copy. 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.

Codice articolo 159785

Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: Women's History and Local Community in Postwar Japan.
• Editore: Taylor & Francis., United Kingdom.
• Data di pubblicazione: 2009
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0415559391
• ISBN 13: 9780415559393
• Rilegatura: Rilegato
• Cataloghi dei venditori:
  • Japan - Gender

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

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.

Informazioni sull'autore

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.