Lecture: Samurai Sword and Sorcery: Illustrations of Fantasy Literature in Nineteenth-Century Japan

November 10, 2000

Lecture: Samurai Sword and Sorcery: Illustrations of Fantasy Literature in Nineteenth-Century Japan
Professor Sarah Thompson (Assistant Professor of Japanese Art History, University of Oregon)
403 Kent Hall, Columbia University (116th St. & Amsterdam Ave.)
6:30 PM
Certain nineteenth-century Ukiyo-e prints by Kuniyoshi and other Utagawa school artists depict subjects very similar to those of the “sword and sorcery” genre of twentieth-century English-language pulp fiction, comics, movies, and television. Kuniyoshi’s brawny warrior heroes battle not only human enemies but supernatural monsters and seductive sorceresses, in much the same manner as the prototypical sword-and-sorcery hero, Conan the Barbarian. The prints illustrate novels by authors such as Santo Kyoden and Takizawa Bakin, who turned to themes of fantastic adventure as a safer alternative to the witty stories of the contemporary demimonde that had been suppressed by the government during the Kansei Reforms of the late eighteenth century. This lecture will examine several popular fantasy novels of the nineteenth century as illustrated in Ukiyo-e prints.
Co-sponsored by the Ukiyo-e Society of America, Inc.