JAPAN IN THE SHOGUN AGE

 
 
 
 
 

History 383, UMBC, Fall 2004
Prof. Constantine N. Vaporis, 723 Adm. (Tel. 410-455-2092)
Tu Th 11:30-12:45, ACIV 006
Office hours: TuTh 1:00-2:00 or by appointment
Email: vaporis@umbc.edu
http://www.research.umbc.edu/~vaporis/
 

Guide to this page:
Course Description
Requirements and Grading
Required Textbooks
Tokugawa Japan and the Web
Lectures and Reading Assignments
 

Course Description:
The history of Tokugawa or early modern Japan, 1600-1868--the age of shoguns, sword-wielding samurai, castle-towns, kabuki actors, geisha courtesans, and wood-block prints--is the theme of this course. One of the central issues that will be explored is  how it was that warriors (samurai) were able to keep the country at peace for more than  two centuries. Through a detailed historical study of this period, the nature of the political, economic and cultural patterns which laid the foundations for Japan's rapid emergence as a modern nation will be examined. In addition to the primary textbook and supplementary secondary source materials, readings will consist of contemporary writings, such as autobiographies, historical fiction, drama, and poetry. Slides and films will supplement the lectures and in-class discussion.


Requirements and Grading:
Midterm examination (10/14), 25%
Final exam (TBA), 40%
Short paper, 6-7 pages in length, 20% (due Th, 12/9)
Participation and Writing Journal, 15%. This consists of short, one- or two-paragraph compositions, usually done in class, in response to a question-type writing prompt.

***All of the above requirements must be completed to pass the course***

Please note: the on-line version of this syllabus will be updated regularly; please use it as a resource for this course.

Required Textbooks:
Conrad Totman, Early Modern Japan
Katsu Kokichi, Musui's Story. The Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai
Yamakawa Kikue, Women of the Mito Domain. Recollections of Samurai Family Life
Ihara Saikaku, Five Women Who Loved Love
Peter Duus, The Japanese Discovery of America
 


Tokugawa Japan and the Web. You will be given a number of assignments using the web. In addition, I hope that you will want to explore various sites on your own. Listed below are just some suggestions:

1. Bakumatsu and Meiji Old Photo Archives (Nagasaki University):
http://oldphoto.lb.nagasaki-u.ac.jp
This is a collection of over 5,000 old photographs spanning 1859-1875 collected by the Dutch in Nagasaki, the place where the Dutch introduced Western photographic techniques. The photos provide important visual evidence of Japan’s transformation from late Tokugawa to Meiji times. Four different types of searches are possible.

2. Ukiyo-e. Pictures of the Floating World:
http://www.bahnhof.se/~secutor/ukiyo-e/
This is the site of Hans Olof Johansson. According to the creators of the Asian Collection Gallery, he is the “undisputed master of Ukiyo-e cyberspace.” Be sure to see his “A Guide to the Ukiyo-e Sites on the Internet.”

3. Edo Japan, A Virtual Tour: www.us-japan.org/edomatsu/
Begin at the checkpoint. Written text can be found at the bottom or right-hand side of thepage. Click on "next" to move down the Eastern Highway, the Tokaido. There are a total of sixteen images. Of course, you can take "side trips" according to what interests you by clicking on the underlined words. After traveling the highway, click on "Map" (of Edo) and examine the layout of the city. Click on some of the various parts of the city to get a feel for life in the shogun's capital.
 

Lectures and Reading Assignments
Starred items (*) are available on ereserves through the library. To access these readings you must input a username (hist383) and a password (island). Also, several reading assignments will be from journals available to you through JSTOR, which is itself available from the Library’s home page: www.umbc.edu/aok/main (At the top of the page, under “Find,” select “Databases” and type in the Keyword “JSTOR”)
 
 

I. From Chaos to Order

Week 1
Th (9/2). Early Modern Japan: An Introduction

Week 2
Tu (9/7). The Country at War (Sengoku)
Readings:
Conrad Totman, Early Modern Japan (hereafter EMJ), pp. xxv-xxix, 3-28.
“Hojo Soun’s Twenty-One Articles” (Hiroaki Sato, Legends of  the Samurai (1995), pp. 249-53. [Available on Library e-reserves].

Th (9/9): The “Realm Under Military Rule"
Reading: EMJ, 29-49, 80-88, study Maps 1, 3; handout, “Portrait of a Ruler” [e-reserve]
 

Week 3
Tu (9/14): Tokugawa Japan and Hollywood (1): "Shogun"
Web assignment based on "Edo Japan, A Virtual Tour"
Optional assignment: Watch the two-hour version of “Shogun” or read part of James Clavell's novel Shogun or read a portion of the PDF version of Learning from Shogun. Japanese History and Western Fantasy.
 
 

 II. The Bakuhan System

What was the nature of the bakuhan (bakufu and domain) system? How did it evolve? What is meant by "centralized feudalism"? Was there such a thing as a "Tokugawa state"?

Edo Castle

Th (9/16): The Tokugawa Shogunate (bakufu).
Reading:
EMJ, pp. 50-56, 88-99; 101-117, 125-39, 554 (Appendix B is a list of  shoguns, with dates)
Video: View the on-line video on the "Importance of the Tokugawa"
 

Week 4
Tu (9/21): The Domains
Reading:
EMJ, pp. 56-73,117-125

 III. Tokugawa Society

How was society conceptualized in terms of status? Did the status hierarchy reflect social reality or wishful thinking? If samurai are "warriors" in 1600, can the same be said in 1700? 1868? How does the image of a samurai compare in the different readings? (Samurai practicing the tea ceremony?!) How do you reconcile the differences? How and why does a samurai ethos (known as bushidô) develop? What part does homosexuality play in it? How do social and economic changes affect the different levels within the samurai status group?

Th (9/23): Society and Status
Reading: Yamakawa Kikue, Women of Mito Domain, ix-xxiv; on-line document (Edict 1); on-line document on the "Four Classes"
To better visualize the various status groups visit the Bakumatsu and Meiji Old Photo Archives
 

Week 5
Tu (9/28): Crime and Punishment
Reading: Yamakawa, Women, 31-61

Th (9/30): The Imperial Institution; Video: "Katsura Imperial Villa" (21 min.)
    Take a virtual tour of the Katsura Imperial Palace and learn more about it from the ArtsEdNet site.
 

Week 6
Tu (10/5): The Samurai (1)
Reading: EMJ, pp. 160-62, 168-172; Yamakawa, Women, 62-100, 149-68.
on-line document (edict 4):

Th (10/7): The Way of the Samurai and Chushingura as Myth-History
Reading:
“The Forty-Seven Ronins” [from A.B. Mitford, Tales of Old Japan,  15-41, e-reserve.]
“The Forty Seven Samurai: An Eyewitness Account, With Arguments” [from Sato Hiroaki, Legends of the Samurai, 304-338; e-reserve]
on-line: read the first section of "Bushido: The Way of the Warrior" from "The Hagakure"
 

Week 7
Tu (10/12): Gender, Sex and the Household
Reading: Yamakawa, Women, pp. 6-30, 100-115, 169-74; on-line document: "The Greater Learning for Women"

Th (10/14): Midterm Examination
 

Week 8
Tu (10/19): Alternate Attendance and Economic Change
Reading: Constantine Vaporis, “Tour of Duty: Kurume Hanshi Edo Kinban Nagaya Emaki,” 279-307. AVAILABLE THROUGH JSTOR [in Monumenta Nipponica 51, 3 (Autumn 1996)].

Th (10/21) Video: "Gonza the Lancer," by Shinoda Masahiro (1986)--based on the puppet play by Chikamatsu Monzaemon
Reading:
Constantine Vaporis, “Samurai and Merchant in Mid-Tokugawa Japan. Tani Tannai’s Record of Daily Necessities (1748-54)” [e-reserve]
 
 

IV. Politics and Religion

Is the term "sakoku" (closed country) anachronistic? If not, from what era does it begin to reflect historical realities? How were ideology, religion and foreign policy used for purposes of political legitimation? Was there a Tokugawa ideology? How religious a society was Tokugawa Japan?

Week 9
Tu  (10/26): Religion and Ideology
Reading:
EMJ, pp. 160-83.
Nishiyama Matsunosuke, Edo Culture, 76-91. [e-reserve]
 

Th (10/28). Lecture: The Christian Problem
Reading:
Christovao Ferreira, "Deceit Disclosed," in George Elison, Deus Destroyed, pp. 295-317. (e-reserve)
EMJ, pp. 73-79, review 113-117, 140-148; on-line document (Edict 2, 3)
 

Week 10
Tu (11/2): Japan--A "Closed Country" (sakoku)?
Reading:
EMJ, 280-315, 403-08; on-line documents (Edict 5)

Optional: View woodblock prints of the Dutch in Nagasaki; select from the menu on the left-hand side to read more about the life of the Dutch on Dejima, including the biographies of a few of the more famous inhabitants of that man-made island
 
 

 V. The Countryside

How was village society organized? What forms of organization were imposed from above or self-imposed? To what extent was the village autonomous? How did the commercializing economy affect the countryside? What ecological trends are discernible during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries? How discontented were Tokugawa commoners and how did they articulate that discontent? What were the limits of the state's authority? How contentious a society was Tokugawa Japan?

Th (11/4): The Village and Economic Change
Reading:
EMJ, 140-41,148-159, 223-279, 316-28.
 

Week 11
Tu (11/9): Unrest in the Countryside
"A Thousand Spears at Kitsunezuka," in Anne Walthall (ed.), Peasant Uprisings in Japan, pp. 119-168. (e-reserve)
 
 

 VI. Urban Society and Culture

How do you account for the rapid urban transformation of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries? How does Japan's urban hierarchy compare with that of other countries? What role did Edo play in that hierarchy? What patterns of urban change are evident for the second half of the Tokugawa period? What picture of Genroku society is revealed in contemporary literature? Can we find evidence for merchant "anti-feudal" sentiment or their glorification of social deviance in Genroku literature? How did the role of merchants in society compare with their place in the official status hierarchy? What was the "way of the merchant"?
 

Th (11/11): Merchant Society and Ideology
Reading:
EMJ, pp. 328-47
Saikaku, Five Women Who Loved Love, 13-113
 

Week 12
Tu (11/16): Edo and Urban Growth
Reading:
EMJ, 184-222, 348-55, 428-42
Extra Credit: View the Idemitsu screens of Edo known as "Edo meisho zu byobu" and write a 1-2 page analysis of the depiction of life in the city.

Th (11/18): The Floating World
Reading:  Saikaku, Five Women, pp. 113-94
 
 

Week 13
Tu (11/23). Popular Theater and Art
Video: "Kabuki," "Kyogen--What Makes People Laugh"

Reading: EMJ, 378-399; Constantine Vaporis, "Caveat Viator: Advice to Travelers in the Edo Period," Monumenta Nipponica 44, 4 (Winter 1989), pp. 461-83. Available from JSTOR.

Exercise: Please complete this visual literacy exercise based on the woodblock prints of Ando Hiroshige. Although you are not required to hand in written responses, I will assume familiarity with this material.
 
 



 VII. Late Edo Society and Culture

How did Tokugawa leaders perceive the socio economic problems that faced their society and what solutions did they propose? Were mid century Japanese right to fear the West? Which were of greater significance, internal problems or the "foreign threat"? Was the Restoration a restoration, a revolution, or a case of "defensive modernization"?
 

Th (11/25): No Class: Thanksgiving
 

Week 14
Tu (11/30): Socioeconomic Change
EMJ, pp. 413-27, 442-482, 511-31
Katsu Kokichi, Musui’s Story, 1-146
 

Th (12/2): The Opening of Japan
Reading:
Peter Duus, The Japanese Discovery of America, 48-89
EMJ, pp. 482-511, 531-39
 

Week 15
Tu (12/7): Discussion of Duus
Reading:  Duus, Japanese Discovery, 90-144
 

Th (12/9) The Meiji Restoration
Reading:
EMJ, 540-551
Women of Mito Domain, 116-45

Week 16
Tu (12/14) Tokugawa Japan and Hollywood (2): "The Last Samurai"
 
 

Final Exam: TBA