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Lyt når som helst, hvor som helst 

Isaac Meyer

This podcast, assembled by a former PhD student in History at the University of Washington, covers the entire span of Japanese history. Each week we'll tackle a new topic, ranging from prehistoric Japan to the modern day.

History of Japan

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 ukiyo-e during the late 1700s before moving into Hiroshige's early life and his entry into the world of woodblock printing. 
 
Show notes here.

Episode 591 - The Artist of the Open Road, Part 1

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 Japan, will be out just a little over a week from now. We'll talk tanka vs. haiku, how translation works, and share a few favorites from one of Japan's most classic poetic compilations.
 
Show notes here.

Episode 590 - An Interview with Dr. Mike Freiling

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 conspiracism in Japan and around the world. Finally, we'll look at how things stand today, and go over some final thoughts on conspiracism in general.
 
Show notes here.

Episode 589 - The All-Seeing Eye, Part 6

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 members of the American occupation government. That conspiracy would, in turn, help shape both prewar and postwar politics on a profound level.
 
Show notes here.

Episode 588 - The All-Seeing Eye, Part 5

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 descent into fascism, empire, and eventually the self-destructive decisions of the Second World War?
 
Show notes here.

Episode 587 - The All-Seeing Eye, Part 4

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 of a fraud investigation, we'll look at how Christianity was transformed from an actual religion into an evil spiritual threat to the foundations of Japan itself.
 
Show notes here.

Episode 586 - The All-Seeing Eye, Part 3

Japan's "Christian Century" is the source of many fascinating aspects of Japanese history, from modern firearms to tenpura. But there's one more way that the century from 1543-1639 shaped Japan--as the source of its first conspiracist moment!
 
Show notes here.

Episode 585 - The All-Seeing Eye, Part 2

This week, something a bit different: the start of a history of conspiracy theories in Japan. This first episode is mostly framing: what is conspiracism as a mindset, and how is it different from actual conspiracies? 
 
Show notes here.

Episode 584 - The All-Seeing Eye, Part 1

This week: we take a look at the genre of the yakuza movie, or ninkyo eiga, which started off as a branch of the samurai film genre before becoming very much its own thing--and, for a decade or so in the 1960s and 1970s, dominating the Japanese box office.
 
Show notes here.

Episode 583 - The Men of Chivalry, Part 3

This week: we take a look at postwar samurai film/jidaigeki in order to understand better the trajectory of the most influential genre in the history of Japanese film. Why did jidaigeki, a staple of pre-1945 film, storm back with a vengeance to the big screen after the end of World War II? What makes post-1945 samurai films distinctive or unique? And what about their relationship to another archetype of international film: the American Western?
 
Show notes here.

Episode 582 - The Men of Chivalry, Part 2

I'm very excited to announce my work with Paradox Interactive on a new piece of content for the excellent Europa Universalis IV! Join me as I talk with Alvaro Sanz, one of the fine folks at Paradox, about the project and about video games, history, and all the fun intersections thereof.

Bonus Episode - Paradox Interactive Interview!

Lyt når som helst, hvor som helst

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