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Tokyo's Edo Past: the Birth of Japanese Cool with Dr. Gavin Campbell
Learn with Dr. Gavin Campbell

Tokyo's Edo Past: the Birth of Japanese Cool with Dr. Gavin Campbell

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Can't make this time? A video recording will be sent to all participants after the seminar.

Edo (contemporary Tokyo) was without question one of the coolest cities in the world. But it wasn't designed that way. The shogun's castle towered over the city and its outer moat ate up ten city miles. It was a city founded by samurai and dedicated to order, hierarchy, and sobriety. But the largest metropolis in the eighteenth-century world attracted far more than grim-faced warriors and scurrying bureaucrats. Beneath the castle's shadows developed a raucous city full of adventurers, swindlers, and ne'er-do-wells, of actors, dandies, and ladies of the night -- a whole "floating world" of fashion and novelty. And it was in this tension between a desire for order and irrepressible creativity that Edo cool emerged.
Studded with visuals and rich with stories, this tour takes us through the corridors of power before crowding in close to catch a kabuki play, stopping to haggle for a new kimono, and then stretching our legs in the legendary Yoshiwara "pleasure quarters" where the chic ruined their name and their fortune in competitions of style. Together we explore how a city founded on samurai values created one of the most daring cultures of the age. Tokyo may astonish us as a modern-day wonder, but Edo was where Japanese cool was born.
Designed to inform curiosity as well as future travels, this interactive seminar is led by Gavin James Campbell, a Ph.D. professor of history at Doshisha University. Gavin has lived in Japan for 19 years and has led Context tours in Kyoto for the last seven years.

Gavin received a Ph.D. in history from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and came to Kyoto in 2001. He is a Ph.D. professor of history at Doshisha University. His teaching and research revolve around Japan's cultural encounters with the West, particularly during the Edo, Meiji, Taisho and early Showa periods (1600-1940), and he has published on the history of foreign tourism and of Protestant missionaries in Japan. To further explore Japan's global cultural encounters, he is currently writing a book on the history of Japanese menswear from the 1600s through the early 20th century. He is also an expert on Kyoto geisha culture and a frequent participant in geisha entertainment.

This conversation is suitable for all ages.

90 minutes, including a 30 minute Q&A.

Customer Reviews

Based on 11 reviews
91%
(10)
9%
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Carol (Colorado Springs, US)
Wonderful and informative!

What an engaging and enlightening look at how Japan started to get its cool points! I will look at all the young, modern, fresh Japanese style differently from now on. This would be so amazing for people traveling to Japan!

Reviewer avatar
Georgeanna Tryban (Indianapolis, US)
Packed Full of Insights into Past and Current Edo

This was a truly great presentation of not only the conditions of Edo in the time of Tokugawa, but also an insightful drawing of parallels forward to the current day. Campbell's explanations of the "dueling cultural dynamic" of past and present gave a real depth of understanding to Japanese culture. I can't recommend this highly enough!

T
Tane (Toronto, CA)
Wow! So much information

Dr. Campbell has a wealth of information and is able to present it in an interesting and organized fashion. His deep dive into facets of the "floating world" and its relation to kabuki and connecting them to modern "cool" were particularly interesting to me.

S
Stewart Dorward (Yokohama, JP)
Edo was Cool

Dr. Campbell knows his stuff, presents it clearly and simply and illustrates it well. I came away with a much clearer idea of how Edo culture flourished and how subversive it was.

C
Christian Talbot (Essex Fells, US)
Superior talk / Q&A

This was my first experience with Context, and I could not have been more impressed. Dr. Campbell's talk and slideshows were fluid, fascinating, and well paced.

123

Customer Reviews

Based on 11 reviews
91%
(10)
9%
(1)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
C
Carol (Colorado Springs, US)
Wonderful and informative!

What an engaging and enlightening look at how Japan started to get its cool points! I will look at all the young, modern, fresh Japanese style differently from now on. This would be so amazing for people traveling to Japan!

Reviewer avatar
Georgeanna Tryban (Indianapolis, US)
Packed Full of Insights into Past and Current Edo

This was a truly great presentation of not only the conditions of Edo in the time of Tokugawa, but also an insightful drawing of parallels forward to the current day. Campbell's explanations of the "dueling cultural dynamic" of past and present gave a real depth of understanding to Japanese culture. I can't recommend this highly enough!

T
Tane (Toronto, CA)
Wow! So much information

Dr. Campbell has a wealth of information and is able to present it in an interesting and organized fashion. His deep dive into facets of the "floating world" and its relation to kabuki and connecting them to modern "cool" were particularly interesting to me.

S
Stewart Dorward (Yokohama, JP)
Edo was Cool

Dr. Campbell knows his stuff, presents it clearly and simply and illustrates it well. I came away with a much clearer idea of how Edo culture flourished and how subversive it was.

C
Christian Talbot (Essex Fells, US)
Superior talk / Q&A

This was my first experience with Context, and I could not have been more impressed. Dr. Campbell's talk and slideshows were fluid, fascinating, and well paced.

123