The Weak Body of a Useless Women

by Walthall, Anne

• ISBN13: 9780226872377
• ISBN10: 0226872378
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-11-15
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

In 1862, fifty-one-year-old Matsuo Taseko left her old life behind by traveling to Kyoto, the old imperial capital. Peasant, poet, and local political activist, Taseko had come to Kyoto to support the nativist campaign to restore the Japanese emperor and expel Western "barbarians." Although she played a minor role in the events that led to the Meiji Restoration of 1868, her actions were nonetheless astonishing for a woman of her day. Honored as a hero even before her death, Taseko has since been adopted as a patron saint by rightist nationalists. In telling Taseko's story, Anne Walthall gives us not just the first full biography in English of a peasant woman of the Tokugawa period (1603-1868), but also fresh perspectives on the practices and intellectual concerns of rural entrepreneurs and their role in the Meiji Restoration. Writing about Taseko with a depth and complexity that has thus far been accorded only to men of that time, Walthall has uncovered a tale that will captivate anyone concerned with women's lives and with Japan's dramatic transition to modernity.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Pt . I

The Making of a Poet

Taseko's Political Heritage

Married Life

The Farm Family Economy

The Nativist Encounter

Nativist Texts and the Female Reader

Kyoto, 1862-18637: Autumn in Arashiyama

A Peasant Woman at the Emperor's Court

Beheading Statues

Going Home

Taseko and the Meiji Restoration

On the Sidelines

Kyoto, 1868

Famous Friends

Political Intrigues and Conflicting Visions

Taseko in Modern Japan

Taseko in Old Age

Remembering Taseko

Epilogue

Notes

Index

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