Friday, March 28, 2025 | 7:00-8:30 PM ET | REGISTER FOR ZOOM
Koume's World: The Life and Work of a Samurai Woman Before and After the Meiji Restoration (Columbia University Press, 2023)
Author: Simon Partner, Professor of History, Duke University
Discussant: Laura Nenzi, Professor of History, Emory University
The Modern Japan History Association invites the wider community to a conversation with Simon Partner (Duke University), who will be speaking about his new book Koume's World: The Life and Work of a Samurai Woman Before and After the Meiji Restoration (Columbia University Press, 2023). Kawai Koume (1804–1889) was an accomplished poet and painter in a lower-ranking samurai family in the provincial castle town of Wakayama. She was an eyewitness to many of the key events leading up to the Meiji Restoration and the radical changes that followed, including the famine of 1837, the great earthquake of 1854, the cholera epidemic of 1859, and the departure of samurai to fight in the civil wars of the 1860s. For more than fifty years, she kept a diary recording her family’s daily life—meals and expenses, visitors and the weather, small-town gossip, and news of momentous events. Through Koume’s eyes and words, Koume’s World opens a window on the social, economic, and cultural life of Japan’s transformative nineteenth century across the Tokugawa-Meiji divide. Laura Nenzi (Emory) will serve as interlocutor.
The Modern Japan History Association is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) non-profit organization supported by member contributions.
