Introduction to East Asian Literatures class reads “Memoirs of a Geisha”

In Professor Lianying Shan’s First Term Seminar “Introduction to East Asian Literatures in English Translation,” students are studying Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha.  Students enjoy reading the story, but they are also raising important and challenging questions about the injustice of romanticizing women’s subjugation, as well about Western fantasies of the geisha.