Asian Studies: Body Politics in East Asia

<p>What do bodies have to do with politics and power? In East Asia, quite a lot. This course explores how the bodies of children, women, and families become central to governance, resistance, and social change. </p><p>This course examines how the body has been a central site of power in twentieth- and twenty-first-century East Asia. You’ll explore how ideas about gender, sexuality, race, disability, and the nation are imposed on the body, and how these ideas are challenged and redefined. The focus is on East Asia, with examples from South Korea, Japan, China, Vietnam. Topics include military prostitution, transnational adoption, population policies, disability activism, cosmetic surgery and more.<br/><br/>You’ll draw on diverse fields, from critical adoption studies, postcolonial theory, gender and queer theory to anthropology, history, and sociology, to understand how power operates through bodies in everyday life, policy, and across borders. </p>