Intercultural Exchanges between Medieval Japan and East Asia: Introduction, Translation, and Conjugation

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25370756
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Japanese history
• Research Institution: Hokkaido University
• Principal Investigator: Hashimoto Yu 北海道大学, 文学研究科, 准教授 (50416559)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 室町時代 / 唐物 / 禅宗 / 和漢 / 文化複合 / 政治文化論 / 外交 / 交流

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The aim of this study is to investigate what and how Muromachi Japan took from the East and Southeast Asian cultures. Observing the conditions of absorption of those elements for fusing with traditional Japanese culture or rearranging the traditional Japanese culture into “Chinese” style, sense of values and view of the world at the time are rather highlighted. International History between Japan and the foreign countries have paid attention to contact surfaces exclusively, but I foresee how the Japanese civilization and thought influenced by foreign cultures at the end.
I particularly tried to enrich the political, cultural history by investigating various cultural phenomena as below: (1) production, donation, and circulation of the noble metals; (2) relations with Zen Buddhism idea and portraits of some Ashikaga Shoguns; (3) the opportunity of the introduction of firearms to Japan; (4) historic evaluation of the Zen monk painter Sesshu’s travel to Ming China.

Free Research Field

中世日本国際交流史