Interdisciplinary Edo: Toward an Integrated Approach to Early Modern Japan (Routledge Research in Early Modern History)

Interdisciplinary Edo brings together scholars from across the methodological spectrum to explore new approaches to innovative humanistic research on early modern Japan (1603-1868).It makes an intervention in the field by thinking across conventional disciplinary boundaries toward a holistic and cohesive approach to Japan’s early modern period.By taking historical, religious, literary, and art historical analyses into account, the contributors hope to begin a new, transdisciplinary conversation on political formation, social interaction, and cultural proliferation under the “Great Peace” of the Tokugawa regime. This book comprises 14 essays by specialists of history, literature, religious studies, and art history.Major topics include Edo-period Japan’s cultural, intellectual, and economic connections to the early modern world; environmental humanities and material culture; popular culture and aesthetics; and the question of how contemporary academic demarcation lines impact the current