"As someone who ended up in Japan not be choice, but by fate, I attempt to make use of my own history and heritage to teach and to write with nuance," she said on a UCLA website.
Determined not to become a dry academic, she read Hollywood gossip columns, was a movie buff, and could move easily from "high theory to talking about U.S. popular culture," Hale said.
"It was absolutely a delightful aspect of her character. Even though she was one of the most prominent historians of modern Japan, she had this very light side."
In 1990, Silverberg published "Changing Song: The Marxist Manifestos of Nakano Shigeharu," which received the John King Fairbank Award for East Asian history. The work "demonstrated the extraordinary power of literature and history when freed from their arbitrary disciplinary homes," said her friend James Fujii, who is an associate professor of Japanese literature at UC Irvine.
"It remains a peerless example of how to read literature as social critique," Fujii wrote in an e-mail to The Times.
From 2000 to 2003, Silverberg also served as director of UCLA's Center for the Study of Women.
The center was host to a leading Japanese feminist who spoke about "comfort women" and the sexual slavery imposed by Japanese men upon Korean women during World War II. The speaker "gave us insight into Japanese life and the censorship that denied the pain inflicted on the enslaved women," Silverberg said in a 2001 article in the Daily Bruin, UCLA's student newspaper.
Silverberg's work has also appeared in several collections. "The Modern Girl as Militant" appears in "Recreating Japanese Women, 1600-1945," published in 1991, and "The Japanese Waitress Sang the Blues" is in "Gendaa no Nihonshi" ("A Japanese History of Gender"), from 1995.
Years ago, a tumor forced Silverberg to undergo brain surgery. Later, she was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.
In 2005, Silverberg retired from UCLA. With the help of former students and friends, she finished her final book.
Silverberg is survived by a brother, a niece, a nephew and cousins.
A memorial celebration of Silverberg's life will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Oct. 3 at UCLA's Royce Hall 314.
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jocelyn.stewart@latimes.com
