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Podcast: New Books in Food
Episode: Rebecca Corbett, "Cultivating Femininity: Women and Tea Culture in Edo and Meiji Japan" (U Hawaii Press, 2019)
Description: The overwhelming majority of tea practitioners in contemporary Japan are women, but there has been little discussion on their historical role in tea culture (chanoyu). In Cultivating Femininity: Women and Tea Culture in Edo and Meiji Japan (U Hawaii Press, 2019), Rebecca Corbett (USC East Asian Library) writes women back into this history and shows how tea practice for women was understood, articulated, and promoted in the Edo (1603â1868) and Meiji (1868â1912) periods. Viewing chanoyu è¶ăźæčŻÂ from the lens of feminist and gender theory, she sheds new light on teaâs undeniable influence on the formation of modern understandings of femininity in Japan.Corbett overtur...