Japanese

Graduate School Faculty of Arts and Letters Tohoku University

Profiles

Assistant Professor KURIHARA Shinichiro

Affiliations :

What is hidden underneath

I investigate politics in the Tohoku domains and the self‐awareness of their people during the Bakumatsu-Restoration period.
A long time ago I came across a diary written by a feudal retainer in the middle of the 19th century. That fascinating document detailed both the hectically changing political situation and the writer’s own activities. The diary, however, was really a later copy—an investigation of the source text revealed quite many discrepancies between the two versions. Why did the author change the contents of his own diary? What were his circumstances at the time, and how did he process them? As I puzzled over these questions, I became even more enthralled by those times.
What were the underlying reasons for various domain movements? A careful analysis of historical materials may cast the Bakumatsu-Restoration period and the Tohoku region in a completely new light.

  • Research, History
  • Personal History
    Graduated from the Faculty of Arts and Letters, Tohoku University
    Completed the doctoral program (without a doctoral degree) at the Graduate School of Arts and Letters, Tohoku University

    Career:
    Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute for Conservation of Cultural property, Tohoku University of Art and Design
    Temporary Committee Member, Sendai City History Compilation Committee, Sendai City Museum
    Special Researcher, Miyagi Prefecture Archives
    Academic Fellow, Graduate School of Arts and Letters, Tohoku University
    (Current position)
    Degree
    Ph.D (Literature)
    Field
    Japanese History (Early Modern and Modern History)
    Research Subject
    The politics of the Tohoku domains and self‐awareness of their people during the Bakumatsu-Ishin period.
    Keywords
    Tohoku, the Bakumatsu-Restoration Period; domain administration; self-awareness; the Ōuetsu Reppan Dōmei
    Affiliation
    National History Colloquium at Tohoku University; Tohoku Historical Society; Society for Meiji Restoration Studies (Meiji Ishin Shigakkai)

Research

Japanese