[I-House Lecture] "Down and Out in Meiji Japan"--Lessons from the Urban Slums


In the late Meiji years, hundreds of thousands of ex-villagers flooded into Tokyo and Osaka, leading to the explosive growth of urban slums. Professor Huffman, who has studied Japanese history for half a century, suggests that we can learn some significant lessons through the lives of those slum-dwellers: the things they taught about human survival, the light they shed on capitalism, the insights they provided into class relationships--and what they have to tell us about how Japanese attitudes toward poverty have changed across the last century. He also will discuss the broader nature of history, such as why vast segments of people are omitted from standard histories and how that omission distorts our view of the past.


Lecturer: James L. Huffman (H. Orth Hirt Professor History Emeritus, Wittenberg University)


Date: Friday, April 12, 2019, 7:00-8:30 pm (Doors open at 6:30 pm)


Venue: Lecture Hall, International House of Japan


Admission: 1,000 yen (Students: 500 yen, IHJ members: free)


Language: English (without Japanese interpretation)


Seating: 100 (reservations required)


For Details and Registration...

https://www.i-house.or.jp/eng/programs/ihouselecture20190412/