Research Leader: Michiko NAKAO
This study aims at reconsidering, from a new perspective, the Imjin War, which had a profound and significant impact on every aspect of society, economy, and culture of 16th/17th-century East Asia through defining research themes that can be broadly shared beyond the framework of a single national history. The first step will be to comprehensively survey and examine the Imjin War-related materials that exist in Japan, and, based on the results of this survey and research, to analyze the development of the Imjin War using new approaches (such as placing focus on activities of the Korean princes and the Japanese army). Then, in collaboration with affiliate researchers over a wide geographical area, mainly in Japan, China, and South Korea, the project members will yield a new definition of the Imjin War’s place and role within 16th/17th-century East Asia. To make the research results public, in February 2021, jointly with the Historiographical Institute we will organize a symposium dedicated, among other topics, to documents (including letters and verses) sent by the two Korean princes (Prince Imhaegun and Prince Sunhwagun), who were captured by the Japanese army during the Imjin War, to Japanese generals and Buddhist monks. Finally, in the last school year of the project, we are planning to publish the research results of the study as a collection of papers, for which, in addition to the symposium speakers, other scholars from a wide range of fields including archival science, international exchange history, economic history, intellectual history and history of art will also be invited to contribute their papers.