2024/25 John Howes Lecture in Japanese Studies
With Guest Speaker Professor Oleg Benesch (University of York)
Samurai, Knights, and Nationalisms: Japan and the Medievalization of the Modern World
Date & Time:
Thursday, January 30, 2025 from 5:30pm to 7:45pm PST
5:30-6:00pm (PST) Reception with light refreshments
6:00-7:45pm (PST) Lecture and Q&A
Location:
In-person: Auditorium, Asian Centre, 1871 West Mall, Vancouver BC (map here)
Online: Asian Studies YouTube Channel (link here)
Presented in English.
Free & open to the public. Registration is required for in-person attendance.
Lecture abstract:
Almost exactly 150 years after their abolition, the samurai are a global icon. Through video games, anime, manga, films, and other media, samurai are a staple of popular culture produced not only in Japan but around the world. This is a significant departure from how they were viewed in the 1870s, as a rapidly modernizing Japan sought to leave behind samurai, castles, and other relics of Japan’s recent “feudal” past. Around the turn of the twentieth century, however, the samurai were rehabilitated and reinvented into symbols of a new Japanese national identity that quickly became known around the world.
This talk examines the process by which the samurai became a global icon, placing this into the context of a wider celebration of the Middle Ages that took place from the late nineteenth century onward. Beginning in Europe, medievalist symbols and ideals were widely invoked in art, architecture, literature, and culture as a response to rapid industrialization and social change. Meanwhile, many colonial officials, soldiers, and settlers saw themselves as modern heirs of medieval knighthood, carrying Christianity and ideals of “civilization” to distant societies as part of their imperial mission. Medieval symbols and narratives were eagerly taken up in countries dominated by European settlers, especially in the Americas.
During this age of imperialism, colonialism, and nationalism, societies around the world searched for their own supposedly medieval pasts in order to mine these for national symbols and legitimacy. In Japan, samurai came to play an important symbolic role in the creation of the modern nation, as well as in defining views of Japan in other countries. In this way, Japanese medievalism came to be recognized and even celebrated throughout much of the world in the early twentieth century, with many people holding up idealized samurai virtues as a model for their own societies.
Guest speaker
Oleg Benesch is Professor and Head of the Department of History at the University of York in the UK. He earned his PhD in Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia, and is the author of Inventing the Way of the Samurai: Nationalism, Internationalism, and Bushido in Modern Japan (Oxford 2014), co-author of Civilizing Emotions: Concepts in Nineteenth Century Asia and Europe (Oxford 2015), co-author of Japan’s Castles: Citadels of Modernity in War and Peace (Cambridge 2019), and co-editor of Drugs and the Politics of Consumption in Japan (Brill 2023). For more on Oleg’s research and publications, please see www.olegbenesch.com.
About the John Howes Lecture in Japanese Studies:
John Howes was a founding member of UBC’s Department of Asian Studies, which he joined in 1961 after earning his doctorate from Columbia University. During his 30 years of active teaching and research, Professor Howes was at the forefront of Canada-Japan cultural, educational and people-to-people relations and inspired countless young Canadians to dedicate their careers and lives to the Canada-Japan relationship in one way or another. In 2012, a number of UBC faculty, staff, and Professor Howes’ devoted former students came together to launch an endowment in his honour. The fund supports the John Howes Lecture in Japanese Studies, an annual public lecture for prominent scholars from around the world to speak to the university community and alumni on topics in Japanese Studies with a focus on Humanities. Dr. Howes passed away peacefully on February 4th, 2017, at the age of 92.
We have reached our in-person capacity. Please join our livestream online!
Should you have any questions, please contact the Department of Asian Studies at asia.events@ubc.ca.
