Jocelyn Xu

Thesis

Heroines and Victims: how was the category of “comfort women” created in China? (WRoCAH
studentship)
Deconstructing grand narratives and generating archives, autobiographies, interviews, testimonies
about the multiple identities of comfort women survivors, this project will alter people’s perceptions
of the Chinese women’s movement and keep “her-story” alive.

Supervisor: Jonathan Howlett

Research

My thesis offers a comprehensive account of how historical knowledge about the “comfort
women” system—specifically, the Imperial Japanese Army’s system of military sexual
slavery—has been produced in mainland China since the 1990s. I argue that although scholars,
media, and museum curators have prioritized historiographical verification of the system in
China and have often sidelined women’s agency, they have nonetheless deepened public
understanding of the comfort women system and contributed to the destigmatization of survivor-
victims. Building on this context, my thesis contends that victim-survivors’ testimonies have also
shaped discourses that promote research on “comfort women” and advance their own
destigmatization.

My research draws on a range of sources, including archival materials, interviews with
intellectuals, and close readings of testimonies. It is supported by a WRoCAH Doctoral
Fellowship funded by the AHRC.

My broader interests include the histories of gender and sexual violence during the Asia–Pacific
War and the implications of comparative feminist histories for women’s agency. I have also
shifted toward cultural history in Shanghai, transnational humanitarian networks, and gendered
memory in museums’ curation. In 2025, with WRoCAH support, I co-curated resources
encouraging everyday ritual practices at the Handbag Factory in London during the London
Design Festival. Since 2026, I have explored human–state interactions in crises, with a focus on
the Jacquinot Safe Zone and Jewish communities in Shanghai during the Sino-Japanese War.

Publications

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

Xu, J. (13 Mar 2026). “Distorting the witness: how digital mediation shapes contemporary
understandings of wartime sexual violence in the Anti-Japanese War.” Women’s History
Review, 1-20. 
Xu, J. (2025). “Comfort Stations and Their Legacy: Exhibitions of Negative Heritage.” Museum
Management and Curatorship, 40(3), 411–427.

Book Reviews
Xu, J. (Aug 2025). “Immortal yet Forgotten: Memory Politics, Chastity, and Female
Revolutionary Martyrs.” Review of Gendered Memories: An Imaginary Museum for
Ding Ling and Chinese Female Revolutionary Martyrs by Xian Wang, 2025, Ann Arbor,
University of Michigan Press. Women’s History Review.

Xu, J. (6 Dec 2024) Review of Fixing Gender: The Paradoxical Politics of Training
Peacekeepers by Aiko Holvikivi. LSE Review of Books.

Blog
Xu, J. (2025, December 18). “From Silence to Visibility: A Chinese Perspective on the Suffering
and Survival of Comfort Women.” Odd China Out.