My project explores the role of affective bonds of a sexual, romantic, and/or mentoring nature between male warriors in the production and maintenance of warrior identity during Japan's Warring States (1467–1603) period. Employing the notion of queer reading as a guiding principle, I examine the traces of intimate bonds between male warriors left behind in poetry, love oaths, personal correspondence, and other documents. I argue that male-male warrior intimacy played a central role, often undervalued by historians due to the conventional disciplinary emphasis on male-female marriage, in the construction of warrior retainer bands and the establishment of warrior alliances. Ranging from the purely hierarchical to the overtly sexual, relationships between warrior youths and their relatively older lords reproduced and reinforced warrior identity, through their violent oathing rituals, recreational activities, and function as a site for cultivating future trusted retainers. A young subordinate could also take advantage of the attention and trust given to him by making demands of his ostensible superior, disrupting the power asymmetries of the lord/retainer bond, or even by openly plotting a rebellion In considering warrior intimacy, the project occasions a reevaluation of the unification process that marks the Warring States period’s central narrative. I contend that the conventional interpretation, which relies on the trope of the Three Unifiers, minimizes the influence of male-male ties on events that effected significant historical change at the macro level, including the circumstances that enabled the Tokugawa clan’s ultimate victory, their vision of the social order, and the form of their sacred authority. I also explore the legacy of these bonds in the Edo period (1603–1868), repurposed as ideals of warrior masculinity and loyal retainership by both samurai attempting to find new purpose in a time of peace and commoners enjoying their newfound wealth and leisure time. Each chapter focuses on an influential warlord and his younger retainer: Ōuchi Yoshitaka (1507–1551) and Sue Harukata (1521–1555); Takeda Shingen (1521–1573) and Gensuke (dates unknown); and Date Masamune (1567–1636) and Tadano Sakujūrō Katsuyoshi (dates unknown), respectively.

Children’s literature flourished in Edo-period Japan, as this dissertation shows through a survey of eighteenth-century woodblock-printed picturebooks for children that feature children in prominent roles. Addressing a persisting neglect of non-Western texts in the study of children’s literature and childhood per se, the dissertation challenges prevailing historical understandings of the origins of children’s literature and conceptions of childhood as a distinct phase of life. The explosive growth of print culture in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Japan not only raised expectations for adult literacy but also encouraged the spread of basic education for children and the publication of books for the young. The limited prior scholarship on Edo-period Japanese children’s books tends to dismiss them as a few isolated exceptions or as limited to moralistic primers and records of oral tradition. This dissertation reveals a long-lasting, influential, and varied body of children’s literature that combines didactic value with entertainment. Eighteenth-century picturebooks drew on literary and religious traditions as well as popular culture, while tailoring their messages to the interests and limitations of child readers. Organized in two parts, the dissertation includes two analytical chapters followed by five annotated translations of picturebooks (kōzeibyōshi and early kusazōshi). Among the illustrators that can be identified are ukiyoe artists like Torii Kiyomitsu (1735-1785). The first chapter analyzes the picturebook as a form of children’s literature that can be considered in terms analogous to those used of children’s literature in the West, and it provides evidence that these picturebooks were recognized by Japanese of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as uniquely suited to child readers. The second chapter addresses the ways in which woodblock-printed children’s literature was commercialized and canonized from the mid-eighteenth century through the latter years of the Edo period, and it shows that picturebooks became source material for new forms of children’s culture during that time. The translated picturebooks, from both the city of Edo and the Kamigata region, include a sample of eighteenth-century views of the child: developing fetus, energetic grandchild, talented student, unruly schoolboy, obedient helper at home, young bride-to-be, and deceased child under the care of the Bodhisattva Jizō. / East Asian Languages and Civilizations

This thesis explores the history of Christianity and conversion to it in 16th and 17th Century Japan. It argues that conversion is a complex phenomenon which happened for a variety of reasons. Furthermore, it argues that due to the political context and limitations acting upon the mission, the majority of conversions in 16th and 17th Century Japan lacked an element of epistemological change (classically understood). The first chapter explores theories of conversion suggesting that conversion in 16th and 17th Century Japan included sorts of religious change not usually encapsulated in the term conversion including adhesion, communal and forced conversion. Moreover, it argues that contextual factors are the most important factors in religious change. The second chapter explores political context contending that it was the political environment of Japan that ultimately decided whether conversion was possible. This chapter charts the evolution of the Japanese context as it became more hostile toward Christianity. In the third chapter, the context of the mission is explored. It is argued that limitations acting upon the mission shaped post-conversion faith, so that changes to practice and ritual rather than belief became the mark of a successful conversion. The fourth chapter explores methods of conversion, the factors influencing it, and post-conversion faith more directly. It argues that Christianity spread primarily through social networks, but that conversion was also influenced by economic incentive, other realworld benefits, and Christianity's perceived efficacy. Building on Chapter Three, the final chapter also seeks to illustrate that the missionaries were not successful in their attempts to spur epistemological change or instil a detailed knowledge of theology or doctrine amongst their converts.