Browse Exhibits (34 total)
Matsudaira Family
As a Matsudaira, I am naturally inclined to studying the family history of the Matsudairas. The project should help determine how the Matsudairas (who were the losers of the Boshin War) transitioned into the Meiji era.
Hibiya Park: A Public Bridge Between East and West
In this project I set out to explore the changes that occurred during the transition to the Meiji Era with respect to the design and effect of public spaces. I focused in specifically on Hibiya Park, the first truly western-stylized park realized in Tokyo in 1903. Here there is an overlap between east and west, not only in the design of the park, but also it’s location within the city and in the people who visited and regularly used the park. The Meiji government established public parks to help consolidate their new power and also to assist in westernization, but these parks, which were often located in areas with Edo period history, also became sites for public protest.
Education in Meiji Japan
A study on the educational reforms set into place by the fledgling Meiji empire, its goals in promulgating stability of the new regime, and its success in attaining those goals. Special care will be given to studying the Western structure of education during the 1870s and 1880s and the stagnation of student enrollment rates that it incurred, as well as Mori Arinori's nationalistic reforms that allowed the Meiji educational system to finally fulfill its decades-long struggle to create a stable, educated public.
Wandering Samurai
For my final project I am going to examine the lives of Chiba Takusaburo and Shiba Goro and how they deal with outdated Tokugawan samurai ideals during and after the Meiji restoration. I will be looking at their origins and upbringing as well as their middle years and where they ended up. I will especially examine how they maintain the ideals that they grew up with in a time when being a samurai is at times looked down upon. In part, I will examine the effect that opening the up to the West played in changing the social norm to a point when samurai were no longer needed or wanted. My primary sources will be “Remembering Aizu” and “The Impact of Western Culture” as well as other images, lectures, and other readings. I will attempt to make a clear connection between Japan opening up to the West for trade, the accepting of Western ideas, and the changes forced upon the samurai.
Bibliography
Shiba, Goro, and Mahito Ishimitsu. Remembering Aizu: The Testament of Shiba Gorō. Honolulu: U of Hawai'i, 1999. Print
Irokawa, Daikichi. The Culture of the Meiji Period. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1985. Print.
Dower, John. "Black Ships and Samurai." Black Ships and Samurai:Commander Perry and the Opening of Japan. MiT. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.