Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchEpisode 595 - Koume's World, Part 2
This week, we'll look at the first chunk of Kawai Koume's diary, which deals with life in the 1830s--or as she knew it, the Tenpo Era. What can we learn about the lives of samurai and commoners in Wa…
Published on 7 hours ago
Episode 594 - Koume's World, Part 1
This week, we're starting a new miniseries focused on the life of Kawai Koume, a samurai woman living in Wakayama in the early 1800s. Today is going to be all about framing her life--what do we know …
Published on 1 week ago
Episode 593 - The Artist of the Open Road, Part 3
This week, we wrap up our series on Hiroshige with a few lingering questions about his career. How much does his "artistic borrowing" really matter? What's his relationship to Hiroshiges II and III? …
Published on 2 weeks ago
Episode 592 - The Artist of the Open Road, Part 2
This week, we're covering Hiroshige's emergence as an artist, which took 20 years after he finished his apprenticeship in the Utagawa school. Why the long gap? And what changed to finally allow him t…
Published on 3 weeks ago
Episode 591 - The Artist of the Open Road, Part 1
This week, we're starting a new miniseries on the life of one of the most famous artists in Japanese history: Utagawa Hiroshige. We'll start off this week with a general discussion of the world of uk…
Published on 4 weeks ago
Episode 590 - An Interview with Dr. Mike Freiling
This week on the podcast, something completely different! I'm getting some help talking about poetry from Mike Freiling, whose new translation of Hyakunin Isshu, entitled One Hundred Poems of Old Jap…
Published on 1 month ago
Episode 589 - The All-Seeing Eye, Part 6
Our final episode in this miniseries brings conspiracism in Japan to the present day, as we discuss a wave of antisemitic conspiracy theorists from the 80s and 90s and the impact of the internet on c…
Published on 1 month, 1 week ago
Episode 588 - The All-Seeing Eye, Part 5
This week, we're covering the postwar "Red Scare" in Japan, which has roots going back to the early 20th century but which was boosted during the postwar era by right-wing politicians and even member…
Published on 1 month, 2 weeks ago
Episode 587 - The All-Seeing Eye, Part 4
This week, conspiracism takes a new twist in Japan, from paranoid worries about Christianity to paranoid beliefs in "Western encirclement". How did this new form of conspiracism help drive Japan's de…
Published on 1 month, 3 weeks ago
Episode 586 - The All-Seeing Eye, Part 3
This week, we explore the "Christian conspiracies" of Edo Period Japan. Working backwards from the Osaka Incident of 1827, when a group of supposed Christian spirit mediums were uncovered as a part o…
Published on 2 months, 1 week ago