Handbook

In this course, you will explore the history of early modern China and Japan (ca. 1600–1912) through the lens of gender and sexuality. By examining topics including Confucianism and the family, Samurai status, imperial expansion, commerce and leisure, medicine and religion, it makes a case for gender and sexuality as drivers of historical change in the early modern world. It examines not only women and women’s history, but also men and masculinity, gender-nonconforming communities, and the changing relationship between gender, sexuality and social, economic, and cultural power. You will be introduced to key questions and debates in the study of East Asian history and the history of gender and sexuality through a range of primary and secondary sources as well as film, fiction and multimedia.