This presentation is an entry point into my current research project on how maritime transport and travel contributed to the making of Japan’s modern world. To date, studies of this topic have tended to focus on Japanese shipping, highlighting … Read more

The talk will be based on the life of Kawai Koume, an artist and housewife in a bushi family in Kishūdomain who kept a diary from the 1830s till the 1880s. Koume’s diary offers a window into life in a scholarly middle-class … Read more

This talk is based on a chapter from Dr. Bardsley's book, Maiko Masquerade: Crafting Geisha Girlhood in Japan <https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520296442/maiko-masquerade> (forthcoming March 2021, UC Press).   Maiko Masquerade explores Japanese representations of the maiko, or apprentice geisha, in films, manga, and … Read more