Jan Bardsley

I am Professor Emerita in the Dept. of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. My research focuses on Japan, specifically topics in women's and gender studies.

My new book, Maiko Masquerade: Crafting Geisha Girlhood in Japan (UC Press, 2021) grew out my class, "Geisha in History, Fiction, and Fantasy." The book explores representations of maiko (apprentice geisha) in 2000s Japanese popular culture, including fiction, film and TV, manga, and personal accounts by maiko and geisha.

My last book, Women and Democracy in Cold Way Japan (Bloomsbury, 2014) investigates controversies over princesses, beauty queens and housewives in Japan in the 1950s. These controversies centered on women's dreams for lovely homes, fashionable lives, romance, and meaningful public activity to strengthen democracy. Why would these dreams incite controversy? Who stands to lose, who gains, if they become a reality? These are the questions at the heart of this book.

I am also the author of The Bluestockings of Japan: New Women Fiction and Essays from Seitō, 1911-1916 (University of Michigan, Center for Japanese Studies, 2007), which was awarded the 2012 Hiratsuka Raichō Prize by Japan Women's University. With Laura Miller, I have co-edited two books, Bad Girls of Japan (Palgrave, 2005) and Manners and Mischief: Gender, Power, and Etiquette in Japan (University of California Press, 2011). Joanne Hershfield and I produced and directed the documentary, Women in Japan: Memories of the Past, Dreams for the Future (2002).