Cross-Cultural Encounters in Early Modern Japan: Foreigners within the Samurai Class, c. 1550-1900 (New Interdisciplinary Approaches to Early Modern Culture)

Recognizing the significance of cross-cultural exchange across newly established frontiers, this edited volume explores the purpose and relevance of non-Japanese individuals who operated with or within the samurai class and their role in constructing and communicating identity in early modern Japan. The volume proposes a largely unexplored methodological lens through which to examine Japanese engagement with foreign others: the samurai class.These essays locate instances of cross-cultural influence, by non-Japanese who conformed to Japanese society or by Japanese people who adopted foreign practices, and identify those individuals responsible for creating such fusion - and, at times, confusion - of values, loyalties, and traditions.This project serves as an examination of foreigners within the warrior class, gathering such studies in a singular volume, to yield vital and timely insight into power dynamics, the performance of identity, and the transmission and translation of cultural id