Defining Raku Ceramics: Translations, Elisions, Evolutions

Ars Orientalis · 2023 · 1 citations

• Social Science
• Sociology
• History

Raku ceramics were first produced in Kyoto in the late sixteenth century, and have continued to be made and used in the context of ritualized Japanese tea culture (chanoyu) up to the present day. This essay examines the interest of Charles Lang Freer in Raku ceramics, and considers how his acquisitions—largely collected between 1895 and 1910, a period of some turmoil in the Japanese art market—serve as a useful index to changing assessments of the Raku ceramic tradition and its place in the broader landscape of arts associated with traditional tea culture in Japan and abroad.

The End of Civil War and the Formation of the Early Modern State in Japan

Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2023

• Political Science
• Ancient history
• History

Japan between 1573 and 1651 underwent massive political and social transformation. The warlord Oda Nobunaga began the process of reunifying the archipelago after nearly a century of civil war, a process that was completed by his junior ally Toyotomi Hideyoshi. More conflict, both domestic and international, led to a third warlord, Tokugawa Ieyasu, positioning himself and his family as the new dynasty of military leaders who ruled a thoroughly pacified Japan beginning in 1603. His son, the second shogun Tokugawa Hidetada, and grandson, the third shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu, successively overcame diverse barriers to Tokugawa hegemony and incrementally established the early modern system that is often anachronistically assumed to have begun with Ieyasu. Their emphasis on pageantry, political immobility, strict control of borders, persecution of independent religion, and the constant threat of violence defined Tokugawa rule and allowed a fragile peace to persist until the mid-nineteenth century.

The Material Foundations of Faith

Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2022-03-31

This chapter explores the excavated evidence of religious institutions and diverse faith-based practices across the city, revealing a bare and unvarnished set of concerns and habits focused on the commemoration of death and ritual use of objects.

Late Medieval Warlords and the Agglomeration of Power

Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2022-03-31

This chapter traces the rise of the Asakura clan from mid-ranking warriors to warlords of the province of Echizen, and the emergence of Ichijōdani as the thriving capital of the region for a century. It considers the construction of a palatial residence near a fortified castle, and the resulting growth of a city around this pairing, as one of many forms of elite warrior politics in late medieval Japan

Reading Medieval Ruins

Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2022-03-31

The Japanese provincial city of Ichijōdani was destroyed in the civil wars of the late sixteenth century but never rebuilt. Archaeological excavations have since uncovered the most detailed late medieval urban site in the country. Drawing on analysis of specific excavated objects and decades of archaeological evidence to study daily life in Ichijōdani, Reading Medieval Ruins in Sixteenth-Century Japan illuminates the city's layout, the possessions and houses of its residents, its politics and experience of war, and religious and cultural networks. Morgan Pitelka demonstrates how provincial centers could be dynamic and vibrant nodes of industrial, cultural, economic, and political entrepreneurship and sophistication. In this study a new and vital understanding of late medieval society is revealed, one in which Ichijôdani played a central role in the vibrant age of Japan's sixteenth century.

Index

Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2022-03-31

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Culture and Sociability in the Provinces

Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2022-03-31

This chapter lays out the vibrant social networks and rich cultural activities of the elite residents of Ichijōdani, pushing back against the derivative claim that provincial capitals were mere “Little Kyotos.”

Urban Destruction in Late Medieval Japan

Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2022-03-31

This chapter examines the chain of events that led to the utter ruination of Ichijōdani in 1573, arguing that the Asakura were not mere roadblocks to the glorious process of unification, but central political actors exploring an alternative vision of prosperous, provincial rule. Their decimation at the command of Oda Nobunaga, part of larger campaign of genocidal violence, meant more than the elimination of a warlord family or even a provincial city. A “small universe” of meaningful lives, unique spaces, and powerful creations that is key to understanding the rich diversity of medieval Japan was, in that act of destruction, erased.

Response to Diamant & Bender, Where Are All the College Faculty?

2022-07-29

The Material Culture of Urban Life

Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2022-03-31

This chapter digs into the stuff of the city, examining the range of objects excavated from homes, garbage pits, moats, and even toilets to try to imagine the rhythms and character of daily life for the residents of Ichijōdani.