Dorothy Y. Ko

Dorothy Y. Ko
高彦頤
Born	1957 (age 67–68) Hong Kong
Education	Stanford University (B.A., M.A., Ph.D.)
Employer	Barnard College
Works	Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth-Century China (1994) Every Step a Lotus: Shoes for Bound Feet (2001) Cinderella's Sisters: A Revisionist History of Footbinding (2005) The Social Life of Inkstones: Artisans and Scholars in Early Qing China (2017)
Awards	Guggenheim Fellowship (2000) Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2022)

Dorothy Ko (Chinese: 高彦頤; pinyin: Gāo Yànyí; born 1957) is a Professor of History and Women's Studies at the Barnard College[1] of Columbia University.[2] She is a historian of early modern China, known for her multi-disciplinary and multi-dimensional research. As a historian of early modern China, she has endeavored to engage with the field of modern China studies; as a China scholar, she has always positioned herself within the study of women and gender and applied feminist approaches in her work; as a historian, she has ventured across disciplinary boundaries, into fields that include literature, visual and material culture, science and technology, as well as studies of fashion, the body and sexuality.[3]

Prior to joining the faculty of Barnard and Columbia, Ko has taught at the University of California, San Diego and at Rutgers University. Ko's research has been supported by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, among others. She was named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2022.[4]

Education

Ko received secondary education at the Queen Elizabeth School, Hong Kong. She pursued university and doctoral education at Stanford University, where she received her B.A. in 1978, M.A. in 1979, and PhD degrees in History in 1989.[5]

Career

Ko began her career as an assistant professor of history at Stony Brook University from 1989 to 1990. She then taught history at Temple University, Japan Campus in 1991 before teaching at the University of California, San Diego from 1991 to 1995. After being promoted to associate professor in 1996, she taught at Rutgers University–New Brunswick until 2001, when she was inducted into the Department of History at her current institution, Barnard College as a professor. She currently teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on the history of the body, gender and writing, and visual and material cultures in China, including Gender and Power in China, Feminisms in China, and Body Histories: The Case of Footbinding.[6][7]

Historiography

Influences

Ko's academic interests and conceptual organization of her scholarship bore significant influence from the works of two historians: Joan Scott and Caroline Walker Bynum. Ko utilized Scott's delineation of gender to establish a theoretical foundation in her explication of the gender experiences and identities of elite women in seventeenth-century China as subjective constructs and later, in her deconstruction of footbinding as a gendered practice.[8] Caroline Walker Bynum's examination of the relationships between women's conceptualization of their bodies and its theological and spiritual position has inspired Ko to problematize the experiences of women in late imperial China with their bodies, especially in terms of footbinding.[9]

Works

Books

As author

• Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth-Century China (Stanford University Press, 1994)[10]
• Every Step a Lotus: Shoes for Bound Feet (University of California Press, 2001)[11]
• Cinderella’s Sisters: A Revisionist History of Footbinding (University of California Press, 2005).[12] This book was awarded the 2006 Joan Kelley Memorial Prize from the American Historical Association for the Best Book on Women's History or Feminist Theory.[13]
• The Social Life of Inkstones: Artisans and Scholars in Early Qing China (University of Washington Press, 2017).[14] This book was nominated as a finalist for the 2018 Charles Rufus Morey Book Award by the College Art Association.

As editor

• Women and Confucian Cultures in Pre-modern China, Korea, and Japan (University of California Press, 2003), co-edited by Ko, JaHyun Kim Haboush, and Joan R. Piggott[15]
• The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory (Columbia University Press, 2013), co-edited by Ko, Lydia Liu and Rebecca Karl
• Making the Palace Machine Work: Mobilizing People, Objects, and Nature in the Qing Empire (Amsterdam University Press, 2021), co-edited by Ko, Martina Siebert, and Kaijun Chen

Articles

• "Pursuing Talent and Virtue: Education and Women’s Culture in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century China." Late Imperial China 13, no. 1 (June 1992): 9–39. https://doi.org/10.1353/late.1992.0002.
• "Kongjian Yujia: Lunmingwei Qingchu Funǚde Shenghuo Kongjian." Jindai zhongguo funǚ shiyanjiu, no. 3 (August 1995): 21–50. https://doi.org/10.6352/mhwomen.199508.0021.
• "Bondage in Time: Footbinding and Fashion Theory." Fashion Theory 1, no. 1 (February 1997): 3–27. https://doi.org/10.2752/136270497779754552.
• "The Body as Attire: The Shifting Meanings of Footbinding in Seventeenth-Century China." Journal of Women’s History 8, no. 4 (December 1997): 8–27. https://doi.org/10.1353/jowh.2010.0171.
• "Footbinding in the Museum." Interventions: International Studies of Postcolonial Studies 5, no. 3 (July 2003): 426–39. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369801032000135657.
• "R. H. van Gulik, Mi Fu, and Connoisseurship of Chinese Art." Hanxue Yanjiu 30, no. 2 (June 2012): 265–96.[16]

References

1. Barnard CV
2. Columbia profile
3. Asian Institute
4. "New Members". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 3 May 2022.
5. "Dorothy Ko papers".
6. "Dorothy Ko papers".
7. "The Style Series | Chinese Fashion, Past to Present".
8. Hershatter, Gail, and Wang Zheng. “Chinese History: A Useful Category of Gender Analysis.” The American Historical Review 113, no. 5 (2008): 1404–21. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30223449.
9. "Caroline Walker Bynum".
10. Reviews of Teachers of the Inner Chambers include:
    • Elisseeff, Danielle (1995). "KO, Dorothy, Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth-Century China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994. 395 p.". Revue Bibliographique de Sinologie. 13: 137–138. JSTOR 24630953.
    • Taylor, Romeyn (1995). "Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth-Century China". History: Reviews of New Books. 24 (1): 41–42. doi:10.1080/03612759.1995.9949213.
    • Ebrey, Patricia (Fall 1995). "Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth-Century China (review)". China Review International. 2 (2): 492–498. doi:10.1353/cri.1995.0083.
    • Brokaw, Cynthia (December 1996). "Reviewed Work: Teachers of The Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth-Century China by Dorothy Ko". Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews. 18: 187–193. doi:10.2307/495632. JSTOR 495632.
    • Dennerline, Jerry (June 1997). "Reviewed Work: Teachers of The Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth-Century China by Dorothy Ko". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 57 (1): 220–228. doi:10.2307/2719367. JSTOR 2719367.
11. Reviews of Every Step a Lotus include:
    • Ebrey, Patricia (September 2002). "Every Step a Lotus: Shoes for Bound Feet. By DOROTHY KO. University of California Press and the Bata Shoe Museum, 2001. 162 pp. $24.95. ISBN 0-520-23284-4". The China Quarterly. 171: 767–768. doi:10.1017/S0009443902360455. JSTOR 4618794.
    • Smith, Stephen R. (Fall 2002). "Review of EVERY STEP A LOTUS: Shoes for Bound Feet". Material Culture. 34 (2): 57–59. ISSN 0883-3680. JSTOR 29764163.
    • Dauncey, Sarah (2003). "Review of Every Step a Lotus: Shoes for Bound Feet". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. 66 (1): 131–132. doi:10.1017/S0041977X03560062. ISSN 0041-977X. JSTOR 4145732.
    • Arthur, Linda B. (Spring 2003). "Dorothy Ko. Every Step a Lotus: Shoes for Bound Feet. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. 162 pp. 61 color plates. 32 black-and-white plates. 6 maps. Hardcover $45.00, ISBN 0—520-23283-6. Paperback $24.95". China Review International. 10 (1): 195–196. doi:10.1353/cri.2004.0003. JSTOR 23732706.
    • Bray, Francesca (July 2003). "EVERY STEP A LOTUS: SHOES FOR BOUND FEET. BY DOROTHY KO. pp. xx, 162. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, The Bata Shoe Museum/University of California Press, 2001. DOI: 10.1017/S1356186303353411". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 13 (2): 274–276. JSTOR 25188378.
    • Cahill, Suzanne (November 2003). "Every Step a Lotus: Shoes for Bound Feet. By DOROTHY KO. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001. 162 pp. $45.00; $24.95 (paper)". The Journal of Asian Studies. 62 (4): 1219–1221. doi:10.2307/3591776. JSTOR 3591776.
12. Reviews of Cinderella’s Sisters include:
    • Ropp, Paul S. (2006). "2". China Review International. 13 (2): 305–311. doi:10.1353/cri.2008.0055.
    • Asim, Ina (2007). "Cinderella's Sisters: A Revisionist History of Footbinding. By Dorothy Ko. (Berkeley and Los Angeles, Calif.: University of California Press, 2005. Pp. xix, 332. $29.95.)". The Historian. 69 (3): 572–574. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6563.2007.00189_46.x.
    • Furth, Charlotte (March 2007). "Cinderella's Sisters: A Revisionist History of Footbinding. DOROTHY KO. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005. xix + 332 pp. £18.95. ISBN 0-520-21884-1". The China Quarterly. 189: 219–220. doi:10.1017/S0305741006001159.
    • Evans, Harriet (October 2007). "DOROTHY KO. Cinderella's Sisters: A Revisionist History of Footbinding. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 2005. Pp. xix, 332. $29.95". The American Historical Review. 112 (7): 1118–1120. doi:10.1086/ahr.112.4.1118.
13. Le, Huy Anh S. (2014). "Revisiting Footbinding: The Evolution of the Body as Method in Modern Chinese History". Inquiries Journal. 6 (10).
14. Reviews of The Social Life of Inkstones include:
    • Kleutghen, Kristina (2015). "Dorothy Ko. The Social Life of Inkstones: Artisans and Scholars in Early Qing China. Seattle and London. University of Washington Press, 2016. xiv, 330 pp. Hardcover $45.00, ISBN 978-0-295-99918-0". China Review International. 22 (3/4): 207–210]. doi:10.1353/cri.2015.0049. JSTOR 26380090.
    • Liu, Lihong (February 2018). "The Social Life of Inkstones: Artisans and Scholars in Early Qing China. By DOROTHY KO. Seattle and London. University of Washington Press, 2017. xii, 315 pp. ISBN 9780295999180 (cloth). doi:10.1017/S0021911817001723". The Journal of Asian Studies. 77 (1): 235–238]. doi:10.1017/S0021911817001723. JSTOR 26572448.
    • Hammers, Roslyn Lee (February 2018). "The Social Life of Inkstones: Artisans and Scholars in Early Qing China. By Dorothy Ko. Seattle and London. University of Washington Press, 2017. Pp. 330. Hardcover $45". Technology and Culture. 59 (2): 477–478]. doi:10.1353/tech.2018.0040. JSTOR 26804424.
    • Lin, Hang (Spring 2019). "The Social Life of Inkstones: Artisans and Scholars in Early Qing China. By Dorothy Ko. Seattle and London. University of Washington Press, 2016. xii+330 pp. Illustrations (color and b/w), maps, tables, bibliography, glossary, index. US $45.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0295999180". Material Culture. 51 (1): 60–62]. JSTOR 27034327.
    • Murck, Alfreda (Spring 2019). "DOROTHY KO. The Social Life of Inkstones: Artisans and Scholars in Early Qing China. Seattle and London. University of Washington Press, 2017. 338 pp.; 78 color ills., 30 b/w. $45.00". The Art Bulletin. 101 (2): 136–139]. doi:10.1080/00043079.2019.1569942. JSTOR 45174895.
15. Lee, Lily Xiao Hong (2004). "Women and Confucian Cultures in Premodern China, Korea, and Japan, and: Images of Women in Chinese Thought and Culture: Writings from the Pre-Qin Period through the Song Dynasty (review)". China Review International. 11 (1): 15–21. doi:10.1353/cri.2005.0024.
16. Ko, Dorothy (June 2012). ""R.H. Van Gulik, Mi Fu, and Connoisseurship of Chinese Art"". 漢學研究.

External links

• curriculum vitae of Barnard faculty
• Dorothy Ko papers - Pembroke Center, Brown University
• Faculty of Columbia History Department
• Wetherhead East Asian Institute
• University of Michigan news release
• University of California Press announcement