WOMEN IN JAPANESE STUDIES: Memoirs from a Trailblazing Generation | Edited by Alisa Freedman

Women In Japanese Studies is a unique academic book that stands out for its collection of memoirs narrating personal reflections on past experiences without necessarily engaging in literature review or theoretical dialogue. The book shifts focus away from male pioneers to highlight trailblazing female scholars in the field, offering an underrepresented perspective on the history of Japanese Studies. Rather than presenting coherent arguments, it guides readers through the nuanced and diverse stories of individual scholars. This approach reaffirms the second-wave feminism’s mantra, “the personal is political,” by intertwining personal narratives with the geopolitical and gender-based inequalities present in academia across the Pacific.

Over the past two decades, critical discussions of Japanese Studies in North America have prompted a reassessment of the discipline, or more broadly, Area Studies, within the broader context of geopolitics and knowledge production. Scholars like Masao Miyoshi, Harry D. Harootunian, and Naoki Sakai have critiqued the Cold War-era complicity between American exceptionalism and Japanese nationalism, which is embedded in the structure of Japanese Studies. Reading Women In Japanese Studies alongside this (self-)critique helps readers grasp how the personal accounts collected in the book not only attest to the geopolitical foundation of Japanese Studies but also generate long-overdue critiques of the gender politics within the discipline.

In addition to editor Alisa Freedman’s introduction, the book features 31 memoirs, ranging from Asian art historian Ellen P. Conant to classical Japanese literature scholar, Esperanza Ramirez-Christensen. The book takes a roughly chronological approach, beginning with memoirs from earlier generations (with PhDs as early as the 1950s), allowing readers to trace the development of Japanese Studies. While summarizing each chapter is unnecessary, as each memoir holds its own unique memories and rhythms, a few overarching themes emerge. The key themes that beg our attention include: female scholars’ encounters or engagement with the geopolitical foundations of Japanese Studies; the impact of prevailing gender discrimination and inequalities in and outside academia on these scholars; and the new visions and initiatives introduced by these trailblazing women. In short, Cold War geopolitics and gender politics are intricately woven into each narrative of the academic (quite literally) journey.  

Regarding the first theme, many scholars recollect their experiences with geopolitical tensions that shaped Japanese Studies in the United States. Barbara Ruch, a pioneer of medieval Japanese literature, highlights the role of the US military in incubating the discipline of Japanese Studies. Japanese language schools or programmes established by the US Military Intelligence Service and Navy laid the groundwork for the discipline, training future researchers such as Donald Keene and Edward Seidensticker, who pioneered Japanese Studies in the postwar period. The US occupation of Japan (1945–1952) following Japan’s defeat in the Asia-Pacific War and the ensuing Cold War created a conducive environment for producing and mobilizing knowledge about Japan. Since the 1950s, prestigious universities with Oriental or Far Eastern Studies departments (note that such colonialist and Cold War frameworks have been gradually replaced with Asian or East Asian Studies in most post-secondary institutions in the US), alongside government or private funders (e.g., the Fulbright Program since 1953), became central to fostering skills and networks for aspiring Japan experts. Joyce Chapman Lebra, the first woman to earn a PhD in Japanese history in the US, exemplifies the postwar generation of scholars born out of these multilayered dynamics of geopolitical and academic vectors: language training in the remnant facility of the army language program at the University of Minnesota, earning a PhD at Harvard under the supervision of Edwin O. Reischauer, an influential figure in both US-Japan diplomacy and East Asian Studies, and a Fulbright Fellowship that supported her field research in Japan in the mid-1950s.

While global political conflicts created career opportunities for some female researchers by positioning Japan as an academic subject, these trailblazing women often faced disadvantages due to structural inequalities in academia. As noted above, multiple authors recount gender discrimination and inequalities in PhD programmes, job opportunities, workplaces, and academic organizations, as well as in daily interactions. Before the implementation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which enforced gender equality in faculty hiring, the opaque “old boys’ network” in the academic job market discriminated against female applicants. Although some scholars who entered the job market in the post-Title IX period became “beneficiaries of affirmative action,” as described by historian Mary Elizabeth Berry (171), they also point out the continued gender inequalities, such as the gender wage gap and discrimination in tenure cases.  

Despite these challenges, the book does not end on a bleak note. The third overarching theme, the trailblazing female scholars’ new visions and initiatives, is evident in various examples like developing feminist research approaches (e.g., Sonja Arntzen), blurring disciplinary, national, media, and sexual boundaries in research and pedagogy (e.g., Sumie Jones), and collaborating with other scholars to revisit Japan from unconventional lenses (e.g., Anne Walthall). These stories showcase not only these scholars’ agency in challenging the masculine, culturalist, nation-centred inertia of the field, but also their integral role in enriching and diversifying the academic community across the Pacific.

Regrettably, the book does not fully reflect the diversification of ethnic or racial identities among scholars and the evolution of inquiries beyond the nationally defined area. This is not due to a lack of diversity awareness among early-generation scholars but simply because Japanese Studies lacked diversity in its early decades. This book, therefore, needs a sequel to explore how the discipline has evolved into a more ethnically, discursively, and methodologically diverse realm. As Freedman emphasizes, the time frame captured in this book is “just a starting point” (8). The paths once trailblazed by these 31 scholars have been carried on by newer trailblazers with diverse identities, locations, and voices.

Sujin Lee

University of Victoria, Victoria