Christin Bohnke

Onna-Bugeisha, the Female Samurai Warriors of Feudal Japan

In 1868 a group of female samurai took part in the fierce Battle of Aizu for the very soul of Japan.

The Actor Arashi Wakano as a wakashu in a kappa (raincoat)

The Disappearance of Japan’s “Third Gender”

Gender roles in Edo Japan recognized an in-between position for young men, called Wakashu, that was erased as Japan westernized.

Editors' Picks

Science & Technology

Can We Build a Better Facebook?

Is it time to turn our back on Facebook? And if so, what social network could possibly replace it?

Education & Society

Jews vs. the “Judeo-Christian Tradition”

Since the 1930s, the idea of a “Judeo-Christian tradition” has been used in American politics, but some Jews have always taken issue with the entire concept.

Arts & Culture

Verbatim: Fredric Jameson

Marxist cultural critic Fredric Jameson offered a philosophy of late capitalism that gave us a language for talking about globalization and the end of modernism.

Politics & History

The Genocide Before the Shoah

For a century, Jews in Turkey have maintained a strategic silence when it comes to recognizing the Armenian genocide. Could that be changing?

Arts & Culture

Lost Literacies Strips Down the Dawn of Comics

In his new book, literary historian Alex Beringer demonstrates how the birth of the genre of printed comic long preceded the Sunday Funny Pages.

Onna-Bugeisha, the Female Samurai Warriors of Feudal Japan

The Disappearance of Japan’s “Third Gender”

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