Wednesday, October 21, 9:00 am, SML Lecture Hall
All are welcome to join us for this talk on "Bringing Japan to Yale", by Robert G. Wheeler, Professor Emeritus of Engineering and Applied Physics at Yale. A curator of the current Peabody Museum exhibit Samurai and the Culture of Japan’s Great Peace, he will discuss some of the featured objects donated by individuals whose papers are in Manuscripts and Archives - Mabel Loomis Todd, Henry W. Farnam, and Shepherd Stevens. In addition, aspects of the science of swords and lacquerware will be illustrated.
From the Yale University Press book on the exhibit co-authored by Robert Wheeler:
“this lavishly illustrated volume takes readers on a journey into Japan’s early modern cultural and political history. It also offers tantalizing glimpses of medieval Japan and the technology underlying the material culture of the samurai. Some objects are dazzling aesthetic and technical feats: impossibly intricate lacquerware, swords as bright and sharp as the day they were forged, and glittering suits of armor from daimyo collections. Others are more unassuming, but equally capable of evoking visions of a lost world.”