This course studies "Martial arts in Japan" by situating them in three phases of importance: (1) In medieval times (the 13-16th centuries), samurai—nominalized out of a verb, saburou ("to serve")—came to overpower aristocrats, to whom they had literally been servers and servants in the previous classical era. With their martial skills, samurai became the major player of this era of multigenerational domestic belligerency. Ironically, martial arts had not yet existed during this "age of samurai." (2) Martial arts were born out of such medieval martial skills and theorized accordingly in the ensuing Edo era (1600-1867), when a major samurai household unified the country and materialized a long-lasting peacetime in which the "real" martial skills became increasingly irrelevant and devalued socially. (3) Then "samurai" also became irrelevant in modern times: the Meiji era (1868-1912) onward. For the last samurai government—the Edo shogunate—was unable to deal with then looming Western colonial powers and thus replaced by the first modern government, which chose rapid and intense westernization and modernization as their national policy to navigate amid the world-wide colonial milieu. Intriguingly, there emerged a certain discourse to identify the Japanese with "samurai," despite the fact that "samurai" had only been a miniscule part of the population before, and while not being recognized overtly, "martial arts" seem to be a taken-for-granted, indispensable component of samurai images thus generated. Such images have continuously been amplified to date, with inevitable constant modifications, involving multiple media, not only texts in languages but also film, anime, manga, video game, etc. By historicizing "martial arts" in this manner, the course aims not only at (A) understanding them as effectively as possible, including such philosophical questions as "body," "body grammar," "body-mind relationship," and, most fundamentally, "performative nature of a being," but also at (B) experiencing firsthand the highly complicated and elusive relationship between what are called primary and secondary sources as well as the necessity to distinguish them nevertheless. This course is open to anyone with an interest. No prerequisite. No previous knowledge nor learning experience of martial arts and of Japanese is required. All reading assignments will be in English translation. Audio-visual materials will be used when available and appropriate.
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