Professor Shigematsu completed her Ph.D. at Cornell University, with training across the fields of Asian/Japan Studies, Asian American Studies, feminist and gender studies. Her intellectual and scholarly concerns include the historical relationship between U.S. and Japanese imperialisms, transnational liberation movements, comparative feminist and critical theory, and media and cultural studies. Dr. Shigematsu’s monograph, Scream from the Shadows: The Women’s Liberation Movement in Japan (spring 2012), offers the first sustained analysis of this radical feminist movement that emerged in 1970, with its lessons for contemporary politics. This book provides a history of this movement’s formation amid the radicalism of the late-1960s, its politics, internal dynamics and its contributions to feminist politics across and beyond Japan.
She is also the co-editor of Militarized Currents: Towards a Decolonized Future in Asia and the Pacific (2010), with Keith Camacho (UCLA). This anthology examines the militarization of Asia and the Pacific as an extension of U.S. and Japanese colonialisms in the region, with a focus on gender and indigenous resistance.
Professor Shigematsu is the
director, writer and co-producer of Visions of Abolition, a new feature-length
documentary about the prison industrial complex and the prison abolition
movement (92 min). The film documents the rise of the prison industrial complex
in the U.S. in relation to the history of slavery, capitalism and the war on
drugs. Visions of Abolition focuses on women’s experience in the prison system
and their activism in the prison abolition movement, providing a critical
exposé of the racial and gender violence perpetuated by the prison system.
Designed as a teaching tool, this film is being used in university and college
courses across the nation and internationally. DVDs are available at www.visionsofabolition.org.