Mizuno Toshikata, Long Live the Great Japanese Empire! A Great Victory for Our Troops in the Assault on Songhwan (Dai Nihon teikoku banbanzai, Seikan shugeki waga gun taisho no zu), 1894

This image: Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, Mr. and Mrs. Hubert Fischer Fund, 1995.206.16

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/223519/long-live-the-great-japanese-empire-a-great-victory-for-our-troops-in-the-assault-on-songhwan-dai-nihon-teikoku-banbanzai-seikan-shugeki-waga-gun-taisho-no-zu

Try as we might, we Westerners can’t imagine Japan without its art. Recent exhibitions on the Samurai as well as the Ukiyo-e prints have had rave reviews, and the Japanese aesthetic is more popular than ever. It can be seen in everything from the comic book to the sushi restaurant.

But where and when did all this begin? How did those few small islands come to have such powerful influence – economic, political, and cultural? To answer that, we shall take a journey through Japanese history and culture from the Iron Age to the Age of Empires. Along the way, we’ll meet the Samurai and see how their swords were (and are) made; we’ll wander through the Floating World of Edo, before picking up a manga from a bookseller (who knows? It may even be by Hokusai!), and then go on to watch a Kabuki show or a sumo bout.

But this is a historical journey too. We’ll meet the Shoguns and try to understand their military government, marvelling at the great castles and fortresses of feudal Japan, which saw off two attempted Mongol invasions. At the end will come the fateful encounters with the imperialist West and the crisis which saw the end of the Tokagawa Shogunate and the Meiji Restoration.

Japan’s political trajectory soon made conflict with the expansionist powers of the northern hemisphere inevitable. We shall study in particular the first of those: the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, before considering also the gathering storm which led to tragedy just forty years later. Throughout, our historical understanding will be via the artists, the scholars, and the poets who paint our journey.

7 weeks, Friday 24 April - Friday 12 June (incl., with a half-term break on 29 May).

RJW F2615

Registration: £90 per person

NB As there are additional costs entailed in running this course, please complete your registration with payment within 14 days of booking. Payment is via BACS or cheque (details for which will be sent when we receive your booking).

Should the course not attract sufficient interest to run, we’ll contact all who have registered, and full refunds will be issued.

If you have not registered beforehand and want to turn up and pay on the first session, please be aware that the course will not run if there are not enough registrations to render it feasible. You are, of course, very welcome to decide at the last minute, but do please be sure to contact us before making any plans or journeys, to check that it is indeed taking place.