Join the Department of History and Noell Wilson from the University of Mississippi for a talk on "Chasing the Wind: Ezo Maps and the Transformation of Maritime Culture in 19C Japan." 

Free and open to the public.

Until the 1780s, most maps of Ezo (the northern most island of Japan) were administrative tools. Created by officials of the local Matsumae clan, those charts summarized in graphic form the maritime space under regional control and its contributions to tax revenue. Over the next decades, as the central Tokugawa government assumed control of Ezo, a new category of map emerged: the navigational aid. Created to guide administrators and soldiers as they sailed from central Japan to their new postings in the north, these early-stage nautical charts became a catalyst for upending the maritime order as travel on the open sea by warrior elites, traditionally a landed class, normalized. As a result of this transformation, Ezo became one of the most dynamic spaces in nineteenth century Japan for revolutionizing mobility. 

Noell Wilson is an historian of maritime Japan and the North Pacific. Her first book, Defensive Positions: The Politics of Maritime Security in Tokugawa Japan (Harvard University Asia Center, 2015) examined the influence of coastal defense on early modern state formation in Japan and received the 2016 book prize from the Southeast Conference of the Association for Asian Studies. Author of articles on the Nagasaki defense system, Ainu drift whale practice and Japanese sailor-apprentice programs aboard Western whalers, she is recipient of numerous research awards including the Fulbright (twice). Wilson is Associate Professor of History and Executive Director of the Croft Institute for International Studies at the University of Mississippi.   

The Department of History Seminar Series runs throughout the academic year and features guest speakers from the top universities who share their perspectives on history. Visit history.uoregon.edu for more information about the seminar series.