Stories of economic growth in early modern Japan often mention labor mobility, urbanization, and the expansion of regional economic enterprises, but rarely mention the cultural practice that made it all possible: letter-writing. This talk considers letters sent back and forth from Edo (now Tokyo), focusing on how men and women, samurai and commoners, great merchants and barely literate workers used writing to fashion selves and forge connections across space.

Dr. Stanley, author of Selling Women: Prostitution, Markets, and the Household in Early Modern Japan (UC Press, 2012), is currently at work on a forthcoming book (Scribner 2020) about a woman's adventures in nineteenth-century Edo.

Sponsored by the Ei’ichi Shibusawa-Seigo Arai Professorship in Japanese Studies, International Studies and Programs, and the Japan America Student Association