Seminars & Short Courses
Inventing the Nation: Medievalisms and the Rise of Fascism in Prewar Japan
Bushidō, warrior cult, ninjas, martial arts – these are all phenomena associated with Japan’s medieval past although they were, in fact, never really present in the period often referred to as such. During this course, we will take a critical look at some of these tropes about the ‘medieval past’ and how they were developed and used in the late nineteenth century construction of Japanese nationalism and in the rise of fascism in the early twentieth century.