Radu Leca

Hong Kong Baptist University · Academy of Visual Arts

Early modern Japan offers an intriguing study case for the assimilation of a variety of world map typologies in terms of pre-existing traditions of thought. Rather than topography, these maps stress topological connections between “myriad countries” and therefore embody the various mental maps of cultural agents in Japan. The maps’ materiality and...

This volume argues that the mapping of stories, movement and change should not be understood as an innovation of contemporary cartography, but rather as an important aspect of human cartography with a longer history than might be assumed. The authors in this collection reflect upon the main characteristics and evolutions of story and motion mapping...

The Covid-19 pandemic has been a game-changer for academic research because it has affected all of its aspects, starting from the "where," which influences the "what" and the "how." Given these changes, I would like to suggest a few possibilities for updating the "where," the "what," and the "how" of research on the Asia Pacific region. I will illu...

[Japan Review 37: 77-100] This article investigates the characteristics of scribal culture in early modern Japan and its relationship to print culture. I focus on the intersections between the activity of Ihara Saikaku and the representative scribal format of the handscroll. In his artistic production, Saikaku engaged with all aspects of handscroll...

The standard analysis of the relationship between manuscript and print media is based on the history of the book in Europe, where movable type printing predominated and the processes of typesetting and of producing illustrations were strictly delimited. In East Asia, however, the predominance of woodblock printing, the visual character of calligrap...

This road map shows the travel route from the shogunal capital Edo along the Tōkaidō Road to Kyōto and Osaka, and then along the northern coast of the Inland Sea and the western coast of Kyūshū island. This was the most frequently used route in early modern Japan, and was essential for delivering goods to and from Nagasaki, the main trading port in...

This article focuses on the historical use and meanings of early modern oaths (Jp. kishōmon 起請文 ). These materially hybrid texts were initially stamped (on one side) and then inscribed by hand in ink (on the other side), often even in blood. Since they are an inextricable combination of print and handwriting, they complicate such dichotomies and op...

Ever since Peter Kornicki's 1998 The Book in Japan, there has been a sustained academic interest in the print culture of early modern Japan.1 However, grasping both the range and the specificities of a particularly varied published output is daunting, especially for the second half of the Edo period. This is what Printing Landmarks sets out to do v...

This catalogue accompanies a comprehensive and refreshing exhibition held at the Maison de la Culture du Japon à Paris (January 16 – March 16, 2019). It was part of the events celebrating 160 years of friendship between Japan and France entitled ‘Japonismes 2018’. Foujita’s case tests the limits of the term Japonisme: rather than belonging to an am...

This new Handbook unites cartographic theory and praxis with the principles of cartographic design and their application. It offers a critical appraisal of the current state of the art, science, and technology of map-making in a convenient and well-illustrated guide that will appeal to an international and multi-disciplinary audience. No single-vol...

Review of an important book in ukiyo-e studies.

Report of doctoral fieldwork undertaken during five months in Japan in 2013, for the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science who kindly granted me a short-term fellowship

This paper discusses the dual agency, both political and aesthetic, of seventeenth century cartographic production in Japan. I focus on Ishikawa Ryusen's 1688 reprint of ‘The General Map of All Countries’ (Bankoku sokai zu). This map of the world has been interpreted as a mere pastiche of Western cartographic elements filtered through Matteo Ricci'...

Cosgrove’s article ‘Globalism and Tolerance in Early Modern Geography’ considers the connection between Abraham Ortelius’s ‘Typus Orbis Terrarum’ and the scholastic tradition, in which cosmic knowledge (scientia) leads to self-knowledge (sapientia). In this presentation I analyse refractions of this pursuit of knowledge in early modern Japan. I foc...

The article explores the significance of the absent body to issues of feminine identity and bodily practices by bringing two artworks together as facing mirrors.

This article follows the transmission of a visual trope depicting Brazilian cannibals from accounts of travelers to Brazil in the 16th century to world maps and popular tales in 17th century Japan. The image of tribesmen roasting human limbs over a fire in woodcut illustrations (such as Theodore de Bry's woodcut illustrations to the captivity of Ha...