Aug 19, 2022
This week, we're covering the rise of the Hirata school of kokugaku, or national studies, during the Edo Period. How did an intellectual movement devoted to linguistics become a powerful political, social, and arguably religious force by the end of samurai rule--and why did that movement fall from power after just a few...
Aug 15, 2022
Enjoy this bonus episode from my other show, Criminal Records, as the podcast takes a week off!
Jul 15, 2022
This week, we're unpacking a rather odd classic of Japanese literature: the Ise Monogatari, a collection of short tales that are probably about a famously seductive aristocrat, but which were in large part not written by him--and which have oddly political meanings given their often lascivious nature. What are the...
Jul 1, 2022
This week: how did a spate of right wing violence in the early years of the 1960s help to fundamentally reshape public discourse around the emperor (and thus around politics and history more generally) up to the present day? And what does all of this have to do with one of the most bizarre short stories that has ever...