Women's History and Biography

Books reviewed in this article: Helen M. Hopper, A New Woman of Japan: A Political Biography of Kato-Shidzue Delia Jarrett-Macauley, The Life of Una Marson 1905-65 Cynthia Nelson, Doria Shafik, Egyptian Feminist: A Woman Apart Judith Olmstead, Woman Between Two Worlds: Portrait of an Ethiopian RuralLeader Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert, Phyllis Shand Allfrey: A Caribbean Life     

Gendering the History of Women's Healthcare

This essay examines the genesis and continuing influence of certain core narratives in the history of western women's healthcare. Some derive from first‐wave feminism's search for models of female medical practice, an agenda that paid little attention to historical context. Second‐wave feminism, identifying a rift between pre‐modern and modern times in terms of women's medical practices, saw the pre‐modern European female healer as an exceptionally knowledgeable empiricist, uniquely responsible for women's healthcare and (particularly because of her knowledge of mechanisms to limit fertility) a victim of male persecution. Aspects of this second narrative continue subtly to effect scholarly discourse and research agendas on the history of healthcare both by and for women. This essay argues that, by seeing medical knowledge as a cultural product – something that is not static but continually re‐created and sometimes contested – we can create an epistemology of how such knowledge is gendered in its genesis, dissemination and implementation. Non‐western narratives drawn from history and medical anthropology are employed to show both the larger impact of the western feminist narratives and ways to reframe them.     

西方城市史的理论研究

这是本作2002年10月22日在中国社会科学院世界历史研究所讲座的要,他介绍了西方城市史研究中的主要理论。第一部分从功能上对城市进行了区分;第二部分介绍了西方城市史学中最有影响的理论和学派。尽管这些理论都有时间和地域的局限,但是,在我们对城市进行研究时,这种功能的划分和理论仍具有指导意义。     

Beyond Exemplar Tales: Women's Biography in Chinese History

This volume brings together accounts of biographies of women covering a span of history from the Han dynasty to the mid-twentieth century.Its aim is to define and provide interpretive clues on the genre.It is,as the editors Joan Judge and Hu Ying point out,partly a study of epistemology,as many of the authors grapple with the issue of whether or not historians can claim to know the lives,including the inner worlds,of Chinese women through time,using biographical information.That seems to me a bit of a "straw wo/man," for knowledge of historical subjects is always mediated by sources.Nonetheless,the contributors,writing from the perspective of history or literature studies,bring a wide variety of viewpoints to bear on questions of the usefulness of women's biography for understanding changes in society,and in the process introduce some fascinating Chinese women.