Legacies of Colonialism in East Asia: Term 2, Week 2
The Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and the Japanese Empire
Readings:
Mark Driscoll, ‘Peripheral Pimps’ in Absolute Erotic, Absolute Grotesque p. 57-80.
C. Sarah Soh, Chapter 3: ‘Japan’s Military Comfort System as History’ and Chapter 4:
‘Postwar/Postcolonial Public Memories of the Comfort Women’ in The Comfort Women pp.
107-173.
Carol Gluck, ‘Operations of Memory: ‘Comfort Women’ around the World’ in Jager and
Mitter ed., Ruptured Histories: War, Memory, and the Post-Cold War in Asia p. 47-77
Questions:
Who were the ‘Comfort Women?’ How did such a system of military sexual slavery develop
in the Japanese empire? What role did the sex trade play in Japan’s expansion into
Manchuria?
According to the article by Carol Gluck, how did Comfort Women ‘come into memory’?
How did their narratives challenge the dominant ‘heroic narrative’ of the war?
What are some of the differences (Soh chapter 4) between Japanese studies and Korean
studies of the comfort women? Why are there such differences?
Additional Readings:
C. Sarah Soh, The Comfort Women
Comfort women speak : testimony by sex slaves of the Japanese military :
includes new United Nations
edited by Sangmie Choi Schellstede ; featuring photographs by Soon Mi Yu.
Holmes & Meier, 2000.
True stories of the Korean comfort women
edited by K. Howard ; Research Association on the Women Drafted for Military Sexual
Slavery by Japan ; translated by Young Joo Lee.
Cassell, 1995.
Comfort women : sex slaves of the Japanese Imperial forces
George Hicks.
Souvenir, 1995.
Silence broken : Korean comfort women
Dai Sil Kim-Gibson.
Mid-Prairie Books, c1999. 1st ed.