Please note: This lecture will be held in person in room 555, Weiser Hall, and virtually on Zoom. The webinar is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Once you've registered, joining information will be sent to your email. Register for the Zoom webinar at https://myumi.ch/A1DNw

This presentation uses the theme of navigation to rewrite the sixteenth-century history of so-called Japanese pirates (Ch. Wokou) from the participating seafarers’ perspectives. To do so, Professor Shapinsky traces the development of patronage networks and sea-routes linking islanders from Tanegashima in the Japanese archipelago with Kyoto aristocrats, Ashikaga shogunal officials, Chinese diplomatic envoys, and Chinese sea merchants. These last integrated Tanegashima seafarers into raiding and trading consortia during the high tide of Wokou activity during the 1540s and 1550s.

Peter Shapinsky is a professor of history at the University of Illinois, Springfield. He is the author of Lords of the Sea: Pirates, Violence, and Commerce in Late Medieval Japan (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 2014) and several articles and chapters, including “Merchants, Monks, and Marauders: Medieval Japan on and over the Seas,” forthcoming in the new Cambridge History of Japan.

Accommodation: If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact us at cjsevents@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.