In Conversation with Dr. Fang Yu Hu (History, Cal Poly Pomona), author of "Good Wife, Wise Mother: Educating Han Taiwanese Girls under Japanese Rule" (U. of Washington Press)

Zoom only at https://csusb.zoom.us/j/388207496

Join us for a conversation with Dr. Fang Yu Hu, Assistant Professor of History at our neighboring Cal Poly Pomona, and the author of many articles and books including her latest, Good Wife, Wise Mother: Educating Han Taiwanese Girls Under Japanese Rule (University of Washington Press, 2024). We will have some copies of Dr. Hu's book on hand to send out to lucky attendees!

From the publisher: In Good Wife, Wise Mother, female education and citizenship serve as a lens through which to examine Taiwan’s uniqueness as a colonial crossroads between Chinese and Japanese ideas and practices. A latecomer to the age of imperialism, Japan used modernization efforts in Taiwan to cast itself as a benevolent force among its colonial subjects and imperial competitors. In contrast to most European colonies, where only elites received an education, in Taiwan Japan built elementary schools intended for the entire population, including girls. In 1897 it developed a program known as “Good Wife, Wise Mother” that sought to transform Han Taiwanese girls into modern Japanese female citizens. Drawing on Japanese and Chinese newspapers, textbooks, oral interviews, and fiction, Fang Yu Hu illustrates how this seemingly progressive project advanced a particular Japanese vision of modernity, womanhood, and citizenship, to which the colonized Han Taiwanese people responded with varying degrees of collaboration, resistance, adaptation, and adoption. Hu also assesses the program’s impact on Taiwan’s class structure, male-female interactions, and political identity both during and after the end of Japanese occupation in 1945. Good Wife, Wise Mother expands the study of Taiwanese history by contributing important gendered and nonelite perspectives. It will be of interest to any historian concerned with questions of modernity, hybridity, and colonial nostalgia.

Speaker Bio: Dr. Fang Yu Hu is an assistant professor of History at Cal Poly Pomona who specializes in modern East Asian history, with a focus on Taiwan, gender, colonialism, and cross-border flows. She received her B.A. in history from UC Berkeley, M.A. in social sciences from the University of Chicago, and M.A. and Ph.D. in history from UC Santa Cruz. Before arriving at Cal Poly Pomona, Dr. Hu taught various East Asian and world history courses at Santa Clara University for a year and at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga for eight years. She enjoys teaching courses on the modern world, ancient to contemporary China and Japan, gender and sexuality in modern East Asia, and World War II Memories in East Asia with attention to Okinawa (Ryukyus) and Taiwan. Dr. Hu has published in the journals ERAS of Monash University and Twentieth-Century China. Her first book, Good Wife, Wise Mother: Educating Han Taiwanese Girls under Japanese Rule (University of Washington Press, 2024), examines the discourse, implementation, and impact of Japanese colonial education on Han Taiwanese girls in 20th-century Taiwan. Her current research focuses on Taiwanese migrants to mainland China and Southeast Asia in the first half of the 20th century.

For questions, please contact Jeremy Murray (History), jmurray@csusb.edu. This series is also supported by Lucy Li and the YOURS (Yotie Oso Undergraduate Retention and Success) AANHPI Student Achievement Program. Find past and upcoming events in the Modern China Lecture Series here.

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