Join us in a celebration of H. Yumi Kim’s new book, Madness in the Family: Women, Care, and Illness in Japan (Oxford University Press, 2022). During the book talk, the author will share some of the book’s main ideas while reflecting on the process of writing a history of kinship and disease. The talk will be followed by remarks and reflections from Tobie Meyer-Fong (History), Erin A. Chung (Political Science), and Clara Han (Anthropology), as well as a festive reception. Copies of the book will be available.

Although it is often assumed that European-trained Japanese psychiatrists assumed control of managing mentally ill people at the turn of the twentieth century, most afflicted individuals remained in the care and custody of their families. This talk explores both the history of how family-based care intensified in Japan despite the introduction of psychiatry, as well as the challenges of writing such a history through a psychiatric archive. It explains how histories of madness tend to render invisible a crucial condition that enabled family-based care: a domestic and moral economy of caregiving that relied on women’s physical and mental labor.

H. Yumi Kim is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Johns Hopkins University.

Co-sponsored by the Department of History and the International Studies Program.

This event is a part of the East Asian Studies Speaker Series. Each semester, the East Asian Studies Program invites several prominent scholars from a variety of disciplines to present research talks. We welcome faculty, graduate students, undergraduates, and others to join us for these talks. This semester, all talks will be in person (although the location will vary).