Imperatives of Care integrates years of Sonja Kim's research on gender and medicine in colonial Korea, but it is more than a mere collection of past works. Kim rewrites her dissertation and articles, develops new themes, and places them in a coherent conceptual framework. Dealing with diverse topics, including the emergence of domestic sciences, the professionalizations of female medical workers, and women's and infants' health care, she claims that the shift in the role of women brought about the reconfiguration of Korea's medical regime as a whole in the period from the Tachan Empire through Japanese colonial rule. Women's duty to care for the health of others and themselves gradually extended beyond their families toward larger com-munities. These expanding responsibilities had consequences for novel care systems in homes, hospitals, and public health settings. By tracing Korean women's medical experiences, the book invites us to reconsider the links between gender and medicine in modern Korea.
