Skip to Main Content

The Chaos and Cosmos of Kurosawa Tokiko: One Woman's Transit from Tokugawa to Meiji Japan

Online ISBN:
9780824869656
Print ISBN:
9780824839574
Publisher:
University of Hawai'i Press
Book

The Chaos and Cosmos of Kurosawa Tokiko: One Woman's Transit from Tokugawa to Meiji Japan

Laura Nenzi
Laura Nenzi
University of Tennessee
Find on
Published:
28 February 2015
Online ISBN:
9780824869656
Print ISBN:
9780824839574
Publisher:
University of Hawai'i Press

Abstract

The Chaos and Cosmos of Kurosawa Tokiko is the story of a rural Mito woman – a political activist, oracle, poet, and teacher – whose life coincided with the late-Tokugawa crisis, the collapse of the shogunate, and the rise of the modern Meiji state. Tokiko’s political activism combines focus and visionary flights of the imagination, nuancing our understanding of political consciousness among the non-elites in nineteenth-century Japan by blurring the line between rational and irrational and between discourse and action. Her use of prognostication, her appeals to the cosmic forces, and her conversations with ghosts illuminate original paths to female participation in the political debate of the late Tokugawa on one side, and resourceful ways to preserve identity in the face of modernity, science, and the onset of historical amnesia on the other. Tokiko’s story places the ordinary individual within the frame of large-scale history, squaring well-known historical moments with the private microcosm of a self-described “nobody.” By putting an extra in the spotlight, The Chaos and Cosmos of Kurosawa Tokiko offers a new script for the drama that unfolded on the stage of late-Tokugawa and early-Meiji history.

Contents
Close
This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

Close

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

View Article Abstract & Purchase Options

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Close