Coed Revolution

The Female Student in the Japanese New Left

Chelsea Szendi Schieder author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Duke University Press

Published:19th Feb '21

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Coed Revolution cover

In the 1960s, a new generation of university-educated youth in Japan challenged forms of capitalism and the state. In Coed Revolution Chelsea Szendi Schieder recounts the crucial stories of Japanese women's participation in these protest movements led by the New Left through the early 1970s. Women were involved in contentious politics to an unprecedented degree, but they and their concerns were frequently marginalized by men in the movement and the mass media, and the movement at large is often memorialized as male and masculine. Drawing on stories of individual women, Schieder outlines how the media and other activists portrayed these women as icons of vulnerability and victims of violence, making women central to discourses about legitimate forms of postwar political expression. Schieder disentangles the gendered patterns that obscured radical women's voices to construct a feminist genealogy of the Japanese New Left, demonstrating that student activism in 1960s Japan cannot be understood without considering the experiences and representations of these women.

“Coed Revolution is a fascinating study of the role and representation of female student activists in the Japanese New Left. Chelsea Szendi Schieder examines the lives and writings of women who were forgotten and misrepresented, both by media sources of that time and by contemporary scholars. This is an important contribution to the study of gender and revolutionary activism during the global 1960s.” -- Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, author of * Radicals on the Road: Internationalism, Orientalism, and Feminism during the Vietnam Era *
“Coed Revolution offers new insights into a crucial dimension of 1960s contentions in Japan through a nuanced examination of both the experience and representation of women in activism during this period. Chelsea Szendi Schieder brings out the stakes in reconceiving this history within a global frame in terms that will make her detailed analysis resonate for a wide range of readers. An important work.” -- William Marotti, author of * Money, Trains, and Guillotines: Art and Revolution in 1960s Japan *
"An approachable, fascinating study, Coed Revolution provides important scholarship on gender and politics in post-war Japan and the role media plays in spinning narratives that shape public opinion.… One hopes Coed Revolution may inspire an English-language anthology of the women's writing for further study."  -- Jan Bardsley * Journal of Contemporary Asia *
"Coed Revolution demonstrates how the practice of citation is political and meaningful beyond its scholarly significance. . . . Such a vital re-framing could alter the ways existing citational practices replicate liberal interpretations of anti-state violence as illegitimate and support counterinsurgency and policing in conjunction with academic discourse." -- Setsu Shigematsu * The Sixties *
"Coed Revolution is a must-read for students and scholars of women’s activism; local, national, and global New Left movements in the 1960s and  early 1970s. . . . We should shift our historiographical view lest we erase the role of women in the New Left. Women were oppressed by the glorification of masculinity but were not exclusively victims. Schieder’s book reclaims their voices and their role in a critical era of Japanese history." -- Barbara Molony * Journal of Contemporary History *
"By focusing on female students in New Left protest during the 'long decade' of the 1960s, Schieder has made a strong case for the particular impact of mass media coverage in marginalizing the important role that coeds played in the protests. Her book is a significant addition to studies both of protest in this period and of the connection between the New Left and second-wave feminism in Japan." -- Patricia Steinhoff * Monumenta Nipponica *
"A fascinating deep dive into the gendered structures of student activism in 1960s Japan. . . . A unique examination of the intersection of middle class subjectivity and radical politics." -- Christopher Gerteis * Journal of Japanese Studies *

ISBN: 9781478010425

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 454g

224 pages