This talk will focus on Koizumi Kikues Manchu Girl (Manshû no shôjo, 1936), a nonfiction work which depicts the author's attempts to "educate" her Manchu maid Li Guiyu in colonial Manchuria. Through the women's conversations on cultural differences between Japanese and Manchu, the text reveals how the colonial project, and in particular cultural assimilation, was promoted and expanded in the domestic sphere. Koizumi's evocation of the tropes of family and motherhood in relation to Guiyu also recasts colonial relations in gendered and familial terms and reflects on the specific roles made available to Japanese and Manchu women within empire.

Co-sponsored by the Center for East Asian Studies.