HIST 6127 - The Body Politic in Asia

(crosslisted) ASIAN 6615, FGSS 6127

Spring. 4 credits. Letter grades only.

Co-meets with ASIAN 4415/BSOC 4127/CAPS 4127/FGSS 4127/HIST 4127.

K. Roebuck.

Visions of bodily corruption preoccupy ruler and ruled alike and prompt campaigns for moral, medical, and legal reform in periods of both stability and revolution. This seminar explores the links between political, sexual, and scientific revolutions in early modern and modern Asia. The focus is on China and Japan, with secondary attention to South Asia and Korea. Interaction with the West is a major theme. Topics include disease control, birth control and population control, body modification, the history of masculinity, honorific violence and sexual violence, the science of sex, normative and stigmatized sexualities, fashion, disability, and eugenics. The course begins with an exploration of regimes of the body in “traditional” Asian cultures. The course then turns to the medicalization and modernization of the body under the major rival political movements in Asia: feminism, imperialism, nationalism, and communism.