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Podcast: New Books in Women's History
Episode: Nobuko Ishitate-Okunomiya Yamasaki, "Prostitutes, Hostesses, and Actresses at the Edge of the Japanese Empire" (Routledge, 2023)
Description: Analysing materials from literature and film, this book considers the fates of women who did not or could not buy into the Japanese imperial ideology of "good wives, wise mothers" in support of male empire-building.Although many feminist critics have articulated women's active roles as dutiful collaborators for the Japanese empire, male-dominated narratives of empire-building have been largely supported and rectified. In contrast, the roles of marginalized women, such as sex workers, women entertainers, hostesses, and hibakusha have rarely been analyzed. This book addresses this intellectual lacuna by closely examining memories, (semi-)autobiographical stories, and newspaper articles, gr...