HISTORY
PROFESSOR DOROTHY KO EMBARKS ON EXPLORATION
OF FOOTBINDING IN CHINA IN NEW BOOK
New
York, N.Y., December 13, 2001 -- History Professor
Dorothy Ko embarks on a new exploration of the
ancient practice of foot-binding in China in
her new book, Every Step a Lotus: Shoes for
Bound Feet. In it, Ko describes the practice's
purposes, origins and expansion before the nineteenth
century. Readers will come away from the book
with a richer understanding of why footbinding
carries such symbolism and how it continues
to exercise a powerful grip on our imaginations.
In her new work, Ko uses women’s own voices
to reconstruct the workings of a Chinese house
where women with bound feet lived and worked.
With keen attention to detail, Ko focuses on
the particulars of foot-binding--the tools used,
its symbolism, and the regional variations of
style and meaning. She focuses heavily on the
plight of being a woman in China in a man’s
world.
Throughout her book, Ko explains the origins
of footbinding. It is likely to have begun in
the tenth century among palace dancers. At that
time, it was not meant to cripple women, but
rather to enhance their grace. However, as centuries
passed, the meaning of footbinding became heavily
domesticated, and it was no longer about creating
gracefulness, but rather about oppressing women.
Ko includes a variety of illustrations in Every
Step a Lotus: Shoes for Bound Feet. Many
of these include materials associated with the
customs and rituals of footbinding, one hundred
illustrations of shoes from different regions
of China, and other historical images which
help to contextualize this ancient Chinese practice.
Ko, who obtained her B.A. and Ph.D from Stanford
University, is a professor in the History Department
at Barnard College. Her course offerings this
semester included two seminars, Body Histories:
The Case of Footbinding, which was premised
on the perceptions of footbinding in China,
and Advanced Topics in Feminist Theory: Sex
and Text in and out of China, in which the
goal was to produce new theories of sex/gender
that work for pre-modern and non-western societies.
Her course offerings for next semester include
Chinese Cultural History, which will
explore the visual and material culture of China.
Ko is also the author of Teachers of the
Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth-Century
China.
Contact:
Elisabeth Piro, Public Affairs, 212-854-2037
Petra Tuomi, Public Affairs, 212-854-7907
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