Reconstructing the Life of Uesugi Kiyoko by Karen M. Gerhardt.
Uesugi Kiyoko (1270–1342) was the mother of the founder of the Ashikaga shogunate, Takauji (1305–1358), and his brother and chief administrator, Tadayoshi (1306–1352). Although Kiyoko lived within the vortex of a new political order being formed by her politically influential sons in the early fourteenth century, little is known about her. Hers is a story not easily told: because information about her is so fragmentary, no monograph or even a single article in English or Japanese has been published about her life. In this essay, I aim to reconstruct the life of Uesugi Kiyoko through an examination of written records by contemporary diarists, personal letters, and poetry written by Kiyoko herself, as well as several physical sites related to her life. The result is a nuanced picture of an educated woman who wrote letters and poetry, wielded significant land stipends in her interests, and helped her two sons work together for political gain.
Japan Review 31 (2017): 3–24
