Department of History
Jocelyn Xu
Thesis
Heroines and Victims: how was the category of “comfort women” created in China? (WRoCAH
studentship)
Deconstructing grand narratives and generating archives, autobiographies, interviews, testimonies
about the multiple identities of comfort women survivors, this project will alter people’s perceptions
of the Chinese women’s movement and keep “her-story” alive.
Supervisor: Jonathan Howlett
Research
‘Comfort women’ were women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during the Asia-
Pacific War (1937- 1945). They have become symbolic of Japanese wartime atrocities across East
Asia. Existing research has focused on the number of survivors, locations of ‘comfort stations,’ and
the origins of ‘comfort systems’ with less attention being paid to the reasons behind the invisibility of
‘comfort women’ in the postwar era. This project explores the multiple identities of Chinese ‘comfort
women’ and how their lives were influenced by narratives of heroism and victimhood promoted by
China’s socialist government after 1949.
This research is AHRC funded through the White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities
(WRoCAH).