Open Edo: Diverse, Ecological, and Global Perspectives on Japanese Art, 1603–1868, Conference 3: Edo Outsiders: Ainu and Ryūkyūan Art

-Organized by Kristopher W. Kersey, University of California, Los Angeles

To this day, many mistake Japan for a culturally homogenous society, yet this nationalistic myth is far from the truth. In an effort to underscore the diversity of early modern Japan, this conference will direct attention to two groups who are often marginalized if not absent in narratives of early modern Japanese art. To the south are the Ryūkyūans. To the north are the Ainu. Recent anniversaries—the 150th anniversary of settler colonialism in Hokkaidō and the fiftieth anniversary of the reversion of the Ryūkyūs from the USA to Japan—have brought renewed critical attention to the art of these two groups. This conference seeks to shift the focus deeper in the archive, to the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries.

Speakers:
Monika Bincsik, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Katsuya Hirano, University of California, Los Angeles
Heeyeun Kang, University of California, Los Angeles
Fuyubi Nakamura, The University of British Columbia
Setsuko Nitta, Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts
Christina M. Spiker, St. Olaf College
Eriko Tomizawa-Kay, University of East Anglia and University of Michigan

The conference is free to attend with advance registration, and will be held in-person at the Clark Library.
Registration will close on Monday, April 15 at 5:00 p.m.
Seating is limited at the Clark Library; walk-in registrants are welcome as space permits.