As I said before, I have a lot of
images to choose from and here is a couple that I might use:
Friday, April 20, 2012
Project Update 1
I'm still in the research stage and
about to start writing my paper. I have been going back and forth between
choosing the Edo Period, but I have decided to stick with it. There are plenty
of web sources and an excess of images to choose from. I fortunately have
access to Gale Resources (it is an online library database) which has really
helped me so far.
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Evan,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you're having success finding images. Do please be careful when dealing with samurai-related images. There is such a huge fan interest on the web that standards are rather mixed, and there is a strong chance that you will encounter untrustworthy information. I was wondering if you have encountered the many books by Stephen Turnbull. Although he's not a true academic, he is a very respected scholar of samurai history, and if you look through his books on Amazon you will find some that would seem to have things to say about the visual culture of the samurai. Also remember that we looked at several samurai images early in the course.
Good luck as you keep working on this very fascinating topic. People typically talk about samurai in terms of the so-called samurai code "Bushido," so a focus on visuality would be particularly interesting.
Just an extra comment. If one is discussing samurai, it is important to note that samurai had essentially become a bureaucratic class in the Edo period, so I'm not sure about the visuality of government officials. There are also the ronin, who are kind of interesting, but are notable more for symbolizing the decline of the samurai code (which, by the way, was only codified when samurai became irrelevant as warriors). The glory days of the samurai is the period often called "Sengoku," which immediately preceded the Edo period. Just my quick thoughts.
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