ISBN:
1441656936
,
9781441656933
Language:
English
Pages:
Online-Ressource (xi, 260 p)
,
ill., maps
Edition:
Online-Ausg.
Parallel Title:
Print version Excursions in identity
DDC:
306.4/819095209034
Keywords:
Travelers' writings, Japanese History and criticism
;
Japan Social conditions 1600-1868
;
Japan Description and travel
Abstract:
"In the Edo period (1600-1868), status- and gender-based expectations largely defined a person's place and identity in society. The wayfarers of the time, however, discovered that travel provided the opportunity to escape from the confines of the everyday. Cultured travelers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries wrote travel memoirs to celebrate their profession as belle-lettrists. For women in particular the open road and the blank page of the diary offered a precious opportunity to create personal hierarchies defined less by gender and more by culture and refinement. After the mid-eighteenth century - which saw the popularization of culture and the rise of commercial printing - textbooks, guides, comical fiction, and woodblock prints allowed not a few commoners to acquaint themselves with the historical, lyrical, or artistic pedigree of Japan's famous sites. By identifying themselves with famous literary and historical icons of the past, some among these erudite commoners saw an opportunity to rewrite their lives and re-create their identities in the pages of their travel diaries."--Jacket
Description / Table of Contents:
Introduction: everything flowspt. 1. Re-creating spaces. Maps, movements, and the malleable spaces of Edo Japan -- At the intersection of travel and gender -- pt. 2. Re-creating identities. Women on the road: identities in motion -- Palimpsests: the open road and the blank page -- pt. 3. Purchasing re-creation. Print matters: popularizing past and present -- Icons of escapism -- Bodies, brothels, and baths: travel and physical re-creation -- Conclusion: dreaming of walking near Fuji.
Note:
Includes bibliographical references (p. [231]-248) and index
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