Gender and Sexuality in Japanese History Across the Premodern/Modern Divide
HIST 327
Spring 2025 not offered
|
| Crosslisting:
CEAS 326, FGSS 334 |
This seminar explores both changes and continuities in Japanese conceptualizations of gender and sexuality between premodern and modern times. Structured around the notion that modernization produced a paradigmatic shift in Japanese life and thought, the course will examine gender and sexuality as both discourse and practice, considering how Japanese people described, experienced, and shaped gender roles and sexual life in their daily existences. We will investigate the dominant gender system and understandings of gender and sexuality operating in Japan before and during the Edo period (1600-1868), then consider the influence of Western views and concepts like the male/female and heterosexual/homosexual binaries on Japanese society and culture from the Meiji period (1868-1912) through postwar times. Other topics include gendered differences in education, gender performance in kabuki, female and male prostitution, the "gender crisis" of the Japanese modern girl, the salaryman and professional housewife archetypes, and postwar gay masculinities. |
|
| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS HIST |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
|
Fulfills a Requirement for: None |
|
|
|