SHUM 3022

Japan and the Age of Discovery

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2024-2025.

In 1610, Nahua chronicler Chimalpahin wrote that a group of Japanese merchants had made landfall in Mexico, bringing with them writing desks, folding screens, porcelain, and silk. During this period, Japanese warlords, merchants, and converts began to engage in overseas exploration, journeying from Acapulco to Rome and traversing the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. At the same time, these actors engaged in colonial expansion, invading Korea, settling in parts of Southeast Asia, colonizing the island of Ezo (Hokkaidō), and dominating the Ryukyuan islands (Okinawa). We will disentangle the complex and obscured role of the Japanese archipelago in early modern globalization through decolonial and archipelagic thinking. In each session, we will apply the readings to a primary source, such as an edict, a world-map folding screen, a set of playing cards, or an anti-Christian tale, that will serve as a focal point for the respective theme of the session. By grounding our interpretations in a diverse array of primary sources, you will develop an interdisciplinary skillset in visual, literary, and historical evidence and gain robust knowledge of transoceanic exchange. You will also contribute to a digital humanities project that will create a visual database of motifs found on Japanese folding screens depicting the arrival of the Portuguese.

When Offered Spring.

Distribution Category (ALC-AS)

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