Kyoto and the Meiji Restoration

6 credits · Undergraduate

Kyoto's seminal role between 1850 and 1868 in triggering the Restoration, and the Restoration's seminal role in reinventing Kyoto as both a modern city and the cradle of Japan's traditional culture. The city's transformation from staging ground for the Restoration, to early victim of the new government's drive to modernize (which included relocating the imperial court from Kyoto to Tokyo), to its eventual rejuvenation as Japan's iconic bridge between past and present, traditional and modern. How the "legacy of Meiji" has been commemorated, debated and represented over the past 150 years.