In order to complete the requirements for the Japanese Studies Certificate, 4 semesters of Japanese language, as well as 2 classes on Japanese culture were needed. Thus, I decided to enroll in this class. Under the instruction of Professor Masako Kubota, this course examined Japan from 1600 to 1868 - otherwise known as the Edo period - focusing on the society, government, family life, religion, and recreational cultural life of the era. Social concerns of the era were also highlighted through the usage of films as case studies. 

During this era, Japan was able to enjoy 268 years of peace. The Shogun took control of the country from the Emperor, establishing a military government with 300 daimyo in control of different regions. Due to the confiscation of the swords owned by the samurai and the nation’s new isolationist policies, the economy and arts were able to prosper, with common people able to participate. Ukiyo-e paintings, haikai poetry, and kabuki theater are some of the many artistic ventures that people of all social classes were able to create during this time. Despite the closing of the country, the Japanese government allowed trading with the Dutch solely in Dejima, and it was through this trade that the Japanese were able to acquire Dutch science books and develop their medicinal studies. The era began to come to an end once Commodore Perry, an American, arrived in Japan with steam ships that intimidated the Japanese, allowing Commodore Perry’s pursuit of negotiation with Japan to be a success. Soon after signing trade deals with the United States, Japan signed agreements with the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and Holland.

At the end of the course, the class was instructed to write a research paper on one significant figure of the era. I chose to write my paper on Ihara Saikaku, a merchant who became a famous novelist and poet. The subjects of his works were often people who were looked down on in society; Haikai sanga no tsu was about merchants, who were at the bottom of the social ladder due to their “impure” handling of money, with artisans, peasants/farmers, and finally the shogun and samurai above them. His books included Koshoku ichidai otoko (The Life of an Amorous Man), which was about a man with numerous sexual partners that included 3742 women and 725 men, Shoen okagami: Koshoku nidai otoko (The Great Mirror of Beauties: The Life of Another Amorous Man), a sequel in which Ihara wrote about courtesans, Nanshoku okagami (The Great Mirror of Male Love), which was about “women-haters” and “connoisseurs of boys,” and parodied the Japanese myth of creation, and Koshoku ichidai onna (The Life of An Amorous Woman), which followed the story of a high-class courtesan, and was a parody of confessional literature of the 13th and 14th centuries. This last book also includes one of the few examples of a sexual encounter between women in Japanese literature. Researching and writing about Ihara Saikaku allowed me to see how he wrote about all members of society, putting up a mirror to them in a way that was not necessarily done before, since common people were not seen as worthy of being the subjects of art. Following the end of the Edo period, his works as well as the entirety of the era were, unfortunately, considered vulgar due to its lack of westernization. Luckily, though, appreciation for the time before the Meiji Restoration was revived, and classes like these are able to exist because of it.