Announcement:
The Kansai Modern Japan Group and the Italian School of East Asian Studies are proud to jointly host a lecture by Mark Ravina (Emory University).

Date: December 19, 2012
Time: 6PM
Place: Kyoto University Institute for Research in Humanities (Seminar Room, 1st Floor)Tel. 075-753-6902.
Access information: http://www.zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/

Title: Nationalism and National Currency: Political Imagery in the Early Meiji Era

The Meiji Restoration is often described as a “modernizing” or “Westernizing” event. In this talk Professor Ravina will consider the paradoxical aspects of Meiji “modernization” and “Westernization.” Many Meiji reforms involved both modern, Western technology and the celebration of Japanese uniqueness and tradition. This talk will focus on visual examples of how reforms could be both “modern” and “traditional,” both “Japanese” and “Western.”
Examining early Meiji currency, Professor Ravina will explore the use of political and historic imagery on Japanese currency, such as the famous destruction of the Mongol fleet at Hakata by the “divine wind,” or kamikaze, on the legendary conquest of Korea by Empress Jingū. These images were both an emulation of US currency, and a declaration of Japanese uniqueness as the land of the gods.

Speaker Bio:

Mark Ravina is professor of history at Emory University in Atlanta, and currently a visiting professor at the Institute for Research in the Humanities, Kyoto University (Jinbunken). He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University. His first book, Land and Lordship in Early Modern Japan (Stanford, 1999), was published in Japanese translation as Meikun no satetsu (NTT shuppan 2004). In 2004 he published a biography of Saig ō Takamori entitled The Last Samurai (John Wiley & Sons). Saigō was the inspiration for the character Katsumoto in the Tom Cruise film, also entitled “The Last Samurai.” Although Ravina had begun working on the book independently of the film, the Warner Brothers production sparked a surge of interest in Saigō and Ravina appeared as a "guest expert" on CNN and on two History Channel programs: "History vs. Hollywood" and "The Samurai." The Last Samurai has been translated into Chinese, Russian, and Polish. His current research focuses on the transnational and international dimension of state-building. He is working on a history of the Meiji Restoration for Oxford University Press entitled Japan’s Nineteenth Century Revolution: A Transnational History of the Meiji Restoration.

Scott North Ph.D.
Professor、Department of Sociology
Graduate School of Human Sciences
Osaka University
〒565-0871 Osaka-fu, Suita-shi, Yamadaoka 1-2 JAPAN Telephone and fax: 81-66879-8065