A Japan of Movements, Annotated Bibliography Example

A Japan of Movements

The following bibliography includes five sources from various cultural views of the Tokugawa period. Each author talks about something different—furniture, housing, arts, literature, and more. Some changes had to do with nature and others with culture, tradition, or rebellion. All changes affect Japan as it is today.

Bibliography

Totman, Conrad D. (2000). A History of Japan. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, Chapter 9, Establishing the Bakuhan Order (1550-1700): 199- 233. Print.

Totman describes the contributions of three leaders of the Bakuhan regime (Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu) with numerous details and background which illustrate the perpetual shift of political power in Japan. The contrasts of rural production and urban commerce became a common theme during this time, as Totman notes. With power lessening and fewer centralized restraints, the author relates how provincial leaders took power and established themselves as the new power sources. After this, Totman shows how more new leaders focused on the defending of their new lands and on building stronger, bigger houses. The author writes in a way that shows his opinions of the facts, but his causes and effects make sense when not so customed to Japanese history, as when he described how Nobunaga copied earlier leaders by using the same places to build support and using the motto “Rule the Realm by Force”. Totman makes it easy to understand why each group fell under Bakuhan power.

Sadao, Tsuneko S. and Stephanie Wada 2003. Discovering the Arts of Japan: A Historical Overview. “Tokugawa Control and the Rise of the Bourgeoisie” 198-242.

Sadao and Wada begin with a timeline which makes it easy to see how the Tokugawa and Edo periods overlap for everyday life, religion, and arts and gives details about how certain painters and groups became big parts of the culture. The sukiya style looked more simple from the outside, leading to it being called the ‘artless’ style. Sadao and Wada include many pictures which show exactly what they talk about it in their article, but much of the style uses the basic angles and design which form the basis of the most well-known parts of Asian arts, like the peaceful shoji gardens with wooden shapes framing the bright flowers.

Hanley, Susan B. (1997). Everyday Things in Premodern Japan: The Hidden Legacy of Material Culture: 25-. University of California Press, Ltd. Print.

Hanley writes that not many houses in Japan are more than three hundred years of age but houses have been built there for thousands of years. Houses of Tokugawa period were not built to last forever. Because Japan weather is wet and has many hurricanes and fires, houses are moved or destroyed or left behind like furniture. Hanley says that more people lived in Japan in the early Tokugawa period and that land-owners allowed poor men to farm small pieces of land until they owned it and built many low-quality houses. The author writes that samurais changed the simple buildings, making more room for formal visits and open spaces. Hanley explains how the styles of this period changed with the culture and with the needs of the regular people.

Sawada, Janine T. (2006). “Sexual Relations as Religious Practice in the Tokugawa Period: Fujido. The Journal of Japanese Studies, 23, 2: 341-366. Print.

As the opposite of Christian relations in Japan, Fujido followers in Japan did not believe in the careful, quiet ways of traditional Japan. Instead, they believed that body pleasures were art and religious freedom and wholeness. Sawada says that in a country that is built on religion and on controlled sword and fighting arts and philosophy, the Fujido movement of the Tokugawa Period happened because more of the common people had money and wanted to spread their understanding of the mind and body. The people who did not take up all of these ideas still liked the idea that life is more balanced when doing exercises to bond with your own body and see it as a temple. Sawada writes that the leaders of these groups also formed close bonds with formal handwriting artists who made their moneys from control and balance with the body and with a sense of art. Women were celebrated in these groups as very powerful to give life and to do something that men could never do.

McMullen, James. (2010 ). “Confucianism, Christianity, and Heterodoxy in Tokugawa Japan.” Monumenta Nipponica, 65, 1: 149-195. Print.

McMullen talks about the changing views of religion during the Tokugawa period. While Christianity was first looked down on and then driven out of Japan, it was always clear that Christianity was not welcome there. At this time many writers seem to hate this religious group more than they had not liked them before. Confucians rose during this time, and McMullen argues that many of their beliefs are the same as with Christians, that this hatred was just a kind of war between the east and west way of thinking. Politics slowly moved to control more than freeing and helping the soul. McMullen claims that this was a confusing time to public readers. Popular articles showed the west as without morals in a way to keep the people from supporting the Christians. Confucians became not as popular, but the author claims that the close ties of Christianity and Confucianism both have a lasting impact on Japan’s culture today.