Gail Lee Bernstein (born 1939) is an American historian who is a professor emerita of

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

at the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

. She specializes in the history of

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

women, and is considered one of the pioneers in this field. Bernstein retired from full-time teaching in 2007.

Biography

Bernstein studied under many of the pioneers of modern Japanese history, including

Edwin O. Reischauer Edwin Oldfather Reischauer (; October 15, 1910 – September 1, 1990) was an American diplomat, educator, and professor at Harvard University. Born in Tokyo to American educational missionaries, he became a leading scholar of the history and cul ...

and

Albert M. Craig Albert Morton Craig (December 9, 1927 – December 1, 2021) was an American academic, historian, author and professor emeritus in the Department of History at Harvard University.Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies (RIJS)faculty/ref> Early l ...

. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...

in 1959, Master of Arts from

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...

in 1961, and PhD from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1968. Her students have included Yumiko Kawahara and Linnea Gentry Sheehan.

Selected works

*''Changing Roles of Women in Rural Japan'' (1976) *''Haruko's World: A Japanese Farm Woman and Her Community'' (1985). *''Japanese Marxist: A Portrait of Kawakami Hajime, 1879–1946'' (1990), Japanese Translation published in 1991. *Editor, ''Recreating Japanese Women, 1600–1945'' (1991). *''Isami's House: Three Centuries of a Japanese Family'' (2005). *Editor, ''Public Spheres, Private lives in Modern Japan, 1600–1950: Essays in Honor of Albert Craig'' (2005)

References

1939 births Living people Barnard College alumni American Japanologists Radcliffe College alumni University of Arizona faculty American women historians 21st-century American historians 21st-century American women writers Women orientalists {{US-historian-stub