Japan After Dark: The Tokugawa Transformation of the Night

Professor Nenzi’s lecture will introduce her latest book, Japan After Dark, which draws readers into a fascinating world of samurai, shipwrecks, nocturnal monsters and partying crowds, in a richly detailed, illustrated and evocative history of the night. The book shows how many of the attributes associated with the modern “illuminated” night were firmly in place in cities and villages throughout Tokugawa era Japan well before the age of streetlights there in the late nineteenth century. Nenzi’s exploration of the transformation of early modern Japan after dark thus challenges many accepted definitions of modernity and inspires new ways of thinking and writing about history.