Interlibrary Loan came through: Harakiri is here, and I have arranged for a History Graduate Assistant to show it. The first half will be tomorrow, Tuesday the 30th; the second half will be next Thursday, October 9th.
Month: September 2008
Oda Nobunaga’s family
In response to the question about Oda Nobunaga’s descendants, you can see the family history in some detail here and in great detail here. (I’m not vouching for the accuracy of these sites in detail, but they seem to be reasonably well-done.) According to my Japanese historical dictionary, Nobunaga was succeeded as Daimyo of Owari by his nephew and his younger brother, and the family did take a role on the field at Sekigahara. They remained minor daimyo in central Japan through the Tokugawa period.
Syllabus and Schedule Corrections
As was pointed out on Tuesday, I made an error in the syllabus — including a midterm in the final grade distribution when I hadn’t scheduled a midterm exam. I’m going to shift the points around slightly so that the final grade will look like this:
|
Attendance, Preparation and Participation |
25% |
|
Midterm Exam |
0% |
|
Short Essays (5) |
35% |
| Final Exam |
40% |
What I’ve done is split the midterm grade between the short essays (each now worth 7% of your grade) and the final exam.
Also, I neglected to schedule the Jewish High Holy Days properly: I will be out both Tuesday, 9/30 and Thursday, 10/9. I am trying to get hold of a suitable movie (I’ll use a documentary if I have to, but I’d much rather not) to show during those class times (and since a lot of samurai movies are really long, odds are good you’ll need most of both) to supplement our other readings. I’ve shifted the readings back accordingly, eliminating the second “catch-up/review” day in the process (so the next paper is due on the same day that it was before, 11/4). This will give you a little extra time to get into the Heike and Conlan readings — use it wisely. You can see the revised schedule here.
Resources available
I’ve been updating some things on these pages:
- the Resource Page now includes links to some handouts, as well as outside resources
- the Course Page now features the current schedule of readings and assignments, which I will update as necessary, as well as links to the syllabus and other useful information.
Also, I will be bringing cookies on Tuesday the 9th.
A very short history of the Kamakura period
- 1180-1185: Gempei War
- 1185-1199: Minamoto Yoritomo in control of Kamakura government
- 1199: Minamoto Yoritomo dies, leaving child heir. Hojo family establishes regency
- 1221: Jokyu disturbance
- 1230s: Goseibai shikimoku promulgated
- 1274, 1281: Mongol invasions at Hakata
- 1333: Kemmu Restoration