Come explore how global, maritime connectivity of the sixteenth century stimulated regional consciousness and cartographic innovation in East Asia. In the trade routes linking of east Asia much of the traffic was carried by seafarers who appear in sources as “Japanese pirates” (wokou, waegu). While carrying out brutal raiding and trading expeditions, these Japanese pirate bands also created a cosmopolitan, maritime world where mariners from China, Korea, Japan, Ryukyu, Europe, SE Asia, and other lands encouraged an openness to other cultures and hybrid cultures. Shapinsky examines the work Mirror on Japan (Riben yijian, c. 1565).

Peter Shapinsky is associate professor of history at the University of Illinois, Springfield. He is a specialist in the maritime history of medieval Japan and the author of Lords of the Sea: Pirates, Violence, and Commerce in Late, Medieval Japan (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 2013).

Professor Shapinsky will be giving a talk on Saturday, November 18, 2017 as part of the Seattle Art Museum Gardner Center for Asian Art and Ideas Saturday University Series. See website for details and location.