W&M Featured Events
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[PAST EVENT] Warrior Fantasies & The Meiji Restoration
November 16, 2017
5pm - 7pm
Access & Features
- Open to the public
Dr. Michael Wert of Marquette University presents a guest lecture.
Swordsmanship rose as a new field of knowledge during the early modern period, a time of relative peace. Although dominated by samurai practitioners in the seventeenth century, commoners participated in swordsmanship with greater frequency starting in the late eighteenth century. For samurai and elite commoners alike, swordsmanship became a vehicle for acting out the fantasy images of the ideal warrior at a time when the day-to-day reality of warriors was at its nadir. This talk explores swordsmanship as a lens for understanding society, status, and violence on the eve of Meiji Revolution.
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