Capitalscapes

Following the destruction of Kyoto during the civil wars of the late fifteenth century, large-scale panoramic paintings of the city began to emerge. These enormous and intricately detailed depictions of the ancient imperial capital were unprecedented in the history of Japanese painting and remain unmatched as representations of urban life in any artistic tradition. Capitalscapes, the first book-length study of the Kyoto screens, examines their inception in the sixteenth to early seventeenth centuries, focusing on the political motivations that sparked their creation. Close readings of the Kyoto screens reveal that they were initially commissioned by or for members of the Ashikaga shogunate and that urban panoramas reflecting the interests of both prevailing and moribund political elites were created to underscore the legitimacy of the newly ascendant Tokugawa regime. Matthew McKelway’s analysis of the screens exposes their creators’ masterful exploitation of ostensibly accurate depictions to convey politically biased images of Japan’s capital. His overarching methodology combines a historical approach, which considers the paintings in light of contemporary reports (diaries, chronicles, ritual accounts), with a thematic one, isolating individual motifs, deciphering their visual language, and comparing them with depictions in other works. McKelway’s combined approach allows him to argue that the Kyoto screens were conceived and perpetuated as a painting genre that conveyed specific political meanings to viewers even as it provided textured details of city life. Students and scholars of Japanese art will find this lavishly illustrated work especially valuable for its insights into the cityscape painting genre, while those interested in urban and political history will appreciate its bold exploration of Kyoto’s past and the city’s late-medieval martial elite.

Magnificent art and architecture created for the emperor with the financial support of powerful warlords at the beginning of Japan’s early modern era (1580s-1680s) testify to the continued cultural and ideological significance of the imperial family. Works created in this context are discussed in this groundbreaking study, with over 100 illustrations in color.

Spaces of Tolerance addresses the topic of tolerance in architectural production. Through examining the boundaries of where discourses, practices and designs are considered publishable (suitable to be made public) or not, the book exposes criteria and cultures which censor architecture so as to offer ways that architecture can be more inclusive and diverse for society at large. The contributors to the book discuss: disciplinary tolerances and constraints related to architecture and its interdisciplinary exchanges and modes of working; physical, spatial, temporal and digital tolerance in material assemblages and production between drawing and building; and social, cultural and political tolerance and threats contingent on geography and history. This timely book aims to look at extremities, margins and marginality to explore acceptable levels – and their fluctuations – in deviation and divergence. Chapters in the book involve ungendering, unacculturating (in disciplinary terms) and diversifying the architectural practitioner, writer, editor, reviewer, and reader, and retooling the instruments and tactics of architectural practice and theory. They argue that tolerance in interdisciplinary research in architecture can cultivate more diverse and productive conversations. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Architecture and Culture.

"Kanban, a fusion of art and commerce, refers to the traditional signs Japanese merchants displayed on the streets to advertise their presence, denote the products and services to be found inside, as well as to give individual identity and expression to the shop itself. This book will trace the history of the shop sign in Japan, explore some of the businesses and trades represented, and help the reader travel back to the world of traditional Japan, made emblematic in the fascinating world of kanban"--

This essay collection presents a transnational history of mid-nineteenth century North America, a time of crisis that forged the continent’s political dynamics. North America took its political shape in the crisis of the 1860s, marked by Canadian Confederation, the US Civil War, the restoration of the Mexican Republic, and numerous wars and treaty regimes conducted between these states and indigenous peoples. This crisis wove together the three nation-states of modern North America from a patchwork of contested polities. Remaking North American Sovereignty brings together distinguished experts on the histories of Canada, indigenous peoples, Mexico, and the United States to re-evaluate this era of political transformation in light of the global turn in nineteenth-century historiography. They uncover the continental dimensions of the 1860s crisis that have been obscured by historical traditions that confine these conflicts within a national framework.

Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji is variously read as a work of feminist protest, the world's first psychological novel and even as a post-modern masterpiece. Commonly seen as Japan's greatest literary work, its literary, cultural, and historical significance has been thoroughly acknowledged. As a work focused on the complexities of Japanese court life in the Heian period, however, the The Tale of Genji has never before been the subject of philosophical investigation. The essays in this volume address this oversight, arguing that the work contains much that lends itself to philosophical analysis. The authors of this volume demonstrate that The Tale of Genji confronts universal themes such as the nature and exercise of political power, freedom, individual autonomy and agency, renunciation, gender, and self-expression; it raises deep concerns about aesthetics and the role of art, causality, the relation of man to nature, memory, and death itself. Although Murasaki Shikibu may not express these themes in the text as explicitly philosophical problems, the complex psychological tensions she describes and her observations about human conduct reveal an underlying framework of philosophical assumptions about the world of the novel that have implications for how we understand these concerns beyond the world of Genji. Each essay in this collection reveals a part of this framework, situating individual themes within larger philosophical and historical contexts. In doing so, the essays both challenge prevailing views of the novel and each other, offering a range of philosophical interpretations of the text and emphasizing the The Tale of Genji's place as a masterful work of literature with broad philosophical significance.

The city of Kyoto has undergone radical shifts in its significance as a political and cultural center, as a hub of the national bureaucracy, as a symbolic and religious center, and as a site for the production and display of art. However, the field of Japanese history and culture lacks a book that considers Kyoto on its own terms as a historic city with a changing identity. Examining cultural production in the city of Kyoto in two periods of political transition, this book promises to be a major step forward in advancing our knowledge of Kyoto’s history and culture. Its chapters focus on two periods in Kyoto’s history in which the old capital was politically marginalized: the early Edo period, when the center of power shifted from the old imperial capital to the new warriors’ capital of Edo; and the Meiji period, when the imperial court itself was moved to the new modern center of Tokyo. The contributors argue that in both periods the response of Kyoto elites—emperors, courtiers, tea masters, municipal leaders, monks, and merchants—was artistic production and cultural revival. As an artistic, cultural and historical study of Japan's most important historic city, this book will be invaluable to students and scholars of Japanese history, Asian history, the Edo and Meiji periods, art history, visual culture and cultural history.

Tokyo today is one of the world’s mega-cities and the center of a scintillating, hyper-modern culture—but not everyone is aware of its past. Founded in 1590 as the seat of the warlord Tokugawa family, Tokyo, then called Edo, was the locus of Japanese trade, economics, and urban civilization until 1868, when it mutated into Tokyo and became Japan’s modern capital. This beautifully illustrated book presents important sites and features from the rich history of Edo, taken from contemporary sources such as diaries, guidebooks, and woodblock prints. These include the huge bridge on which the city was centered; the vast castle of the Shogun; sumptuous Buddhist temples, bars, kabuki theaters, and Yoshiwara—the famous red-light district.