ga102: The City of Osaka: Exploring the Frontiers of Research in Urban History

Introduction to the Course

In this course, a group of Osaka City University lecturers sheds light on the history of urban Osaka from prehistory and antiquity to the present, making free use of a diverse range of historical sources, including visual materials, to introduce you to research in urban history at the cutting edge.

Course Outline

　In this course, we, the Japanese history faculty, will give a series of lectures covering the history of the city of Osaka, from prehistory to present. With representative source materials—textual records as well as objects—from each historical period pointing the way, we will use the latest scholarly research and methodologies to elucidate and interpret the urban spatial structures through which the people of Osaka lived their lives.

　To illustrate such lives concretely, this course looks to the city of Osaka. In the ancient period, the Uemachi Plateau, which sits at the center of the city today, served for a time as the site of the imperial palace (Naniwanomiya) and, therefore, the capital. The area thus became a primary node for the circulation of goods and people, as well as for international relations. It continued as an urban space even after the capital moved, came to be called “Osaka” from the end of the fifteenth century, and eventually Hideyoshi (1537-1598) chose it as his seat of power, constructing the massive Osaka Castle and building up the surrounding town. Thus Osaka is a city that represents the two classic urban forms in Japanese history: the Chinese-style capital of the ancient period and the castle town of the early modern period, with the gap between them, importantly, bridged by the medieval period’s city networks.

　In this course, we’ll shine light on Osaka’s history through on-the-ground examples, making full use of the texts, illustrations, and other primary sources and visual materials that together allow us to reconstruct the true shape of the city’s past. In bringing together the material for the class, we’ve worked with researchers from other institutions, such as the Osaka Museum of History, and along the way a number of them will join us as guest speakers. To make the course available to a wider audience, we’ve also prepared English subtitles for each lecture. We very much hope that the course will reach people overseas with an interest in Japan’s urban history, especially international undergraduate and graduate students who might be considering studying urban or Japanese history at a university in Japan.

　With that, let’s get started on our journey, following the frontiers of urban historical research in Japan through the twists and turns of Osaka’s past.

Week 1：Prehistory and Antiquity: The Development of Naniwa and the Imperial Palace of Naniwanomiya

• Introduction and Osaka’s Geography and Prehistory
• The urban development of Naniwa from its beginnings in the Kofun period
• The excavation of Naniwanomiya and research on ancient history
• The expansion of Naniwanomiya

Week 2：The Medieval Period: The Settlement at Osaka Hongan-ji Temple, and the Osaka of Toyotomi

• From antiquity to the medieval period
• Osaka Hongan-ji Temple and its associated settlement
• Hideyoshi’s construction of Osaka Castle and the castle town of Osaka
• The encampment at Osaka and the Tokugawa castle town of Osaka

Week 3：The Early Modern Period: Development of the Urban Area and the Social Structure

• Urban Osaka’s Segmental Structure
• The Yasui House Documents and Development of Dōtonbori
• The Urban Neighborhood: A Case Study of Doshōmachi 3-chōme
• The Fraternity: A Case Study of the Doshōmachi Drug Wholesalers' Guild

Week 4：The Modern Period: Urban Development and the Transformation of Regional Society

• Foreign Settlements and Brothel Districts as Windows on Osaka and the Meiji Restoration
• Light and Shadow in an Industrial City: The Back-Alley Tenements of Nipponbashi
• “Big-Time Osaka” and the Urban Policies of Seki Hajime
• Contemporary Osaka: Some Thoughts to Conclude the Course

Bio of Lecturers and Staff

Naofumi KISHIMOTO

Professor, Osaka City University; specialist field: Archaeology of Japan (Kofun period); PhD. (Lit.)
1964: Born in Kakogawa City, Hyogo Prefecture
1991: Retired from postdoctoral research on Literature at Kyoto University Graduate School of Letters, joining the Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties the same year; joined the Agency for Cultural Affairs in 1996; 2000: Assistant Professor, Faculty of Letters, Osaka City University, subsequently progressing from Associate Professor to Professor
Research interests: Prof. Kishimoto is researching the formation process of the Kofun period, during which the state of Wa was born, and elucidating the construction of royal authority through examining the system of shared ownership of keyhole-shaped tumuli on the basis of morphological research on these tumuli. He is also researching the history of the Kofun period and is presently contemplating progressing on to research the Asuka period.

Toru IWASHITA

Associate Professor, Osaka City University; specialist field: History of Ancient Japan; PhD. (Lit.)
1980: Born in Kyoto Prefecture
2010: Completed postdoctoral studies at University of Tokyo Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences
2010: Lecturer, Faculty of Economics, Kanto Gakuen University; from 2013, progressed from Lecturer at Osaka City University to Associate Professor
Research interests: The system of Governorships [in ancient Japan], annotating ancient texts, and the history of ancient Osaka
Publications include: Nihon kodai no gunji to tennō (Governors and Emperors in Ancient Japan), Yoshikawa Kōbunkan and Fujiwara no Michinaga jiten (An Encyclopedia of Fujiwara no Michinaga), co-authored, Shibunkaku Shuppan

Hiroshi NIKI

Professor, Osaka City University; specialist fields: History of Medieval Japan, Urban History; PhD. (Lit.)
1962: Born in Osaka Prefecture
1990: Completed postdoctoral studies at Kyoto University Graduate School of Letters
1990: Assistant, Kyoto University Graduate School of Letters; from 1996, progressed from Assistant Professor, Faculty of Letters, Osaka City University, etc., to Professor
Research interests: Taking an interdisciplinary approach to researching the urban history of medieval Japan, Dr. Niki concentrates on documentary sources while drawing on research findings in archaeology and historical geography.
In recent years, he has been concentrating especially on castle towns and urban religious settlements.

Takashi TSUKADA

Professor, Osaka City University; specialist fields: Early Modern History of Japan, Urban Social History; PhD. (Lit.)
1954: Born in Fukui Prefecture
1978: Graduated from Faculty of Letters, University of Tokyo
1979: Assistant, Historiographical Institute of the University of Tokyo; 1988: Lecturer, Faculty of Letters, Osaka City University, subsequently progressing from Assistant Professor to Professor
Specialist field: Early Modern History of Japan
Research interests: Prof. Tsukuda covers a broad range of interests, including the class system and urban history of early modern Japan, along with regional history. The urban social history of Osaka is a major pillar of his research. Publications include: Kinsei Osaka no toshi shakai (Urban Society in Early Modern Osaka),Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, Kinsei Osaka no hinin to mibunteki shūen (The Underclass and Social Fringes in Early Modern Osaka), The Institute of the Burakumin Problem, and Toshi shakai no shiten to kōsō (Perspectives and Concepts of Urban Society), Seibundō, among numerous others

Ashita SAGA

Professor, Osaka City University; specialist fields: History of Modern Japan, Urban Social History; PhD. (Lit.)
1966: Born in Osaka
1997: Completed postdoctoral studies at Osaka City University Graduate School of Letters
1999: Full-time Lecturer, Faculty of Letters, Momoyama Gakuin University, and subsequently Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Economics; from 2010, progressed from Associate Professor, Osaka City University, to Professor
Research interests: Taking the urban social and regional history of modern Osaka as themes, Prof. Saga is engaged in reconstructing the lives of the common people of Osaka. In recent years, Prof. Saga also been collaborating in research on society in the brothel districts from the early modern into the modern period.

LEE Yangho

Chief Curator, Osaka Museum of History
1997: Completed postdoctoral studies in Architecture at the Postgraduate School of Science and Engineering, Kansai University; PhD. (Eng.)
1997: Progressed from Curator, Survey and Research Section, Osaka City Cultural Properties Association to Chief Curator, Osaka Museum of History

Sachiko WATANABE

From Sakai City, Osaka Prefecture
1999: Completed postdoctoral studies at Osaka City University Graduate School of Letters; PhD. (Lit.)
Research interests: Dr. Watanabe is researching the drug wholesaler’s guild in early modern Osaka, along with the distribution of drugs in Western Japan.
Publications include: Kinsei Osaka yakushu no torihiki kōzō to shakai shūdan (Social Groups and the Structure of the Trade in Drugs in Early Modern Osaka), Seibundō Shuppan, 2006
At present, Dr. Watanabe is a Research Assistant on the Program for Advancing Strategic International Networks to Accelerate the Circulation of Talented Researchers for the research theme of Marginal Social Groups’ Experiences of Modernity: Building Bridges between Historians of Asia in Japan and the West.

Weihua WU

Engaged in postdoctoral studies at Osaka City University Graduate School of Letters; JSPS Research Fellowship for Young Scientists (DC 1 ); An International student from China;
Research interests: Early Modern Urban History of Japan;He is researching the early modern chō by focusing on the neighborhood of Doshōmachi sanchō-me in Osaka.

Masaki TANIGUCHI

Engaged in postdoctoral studies at Osaka City University Graduate School of Letters; specialist field: Sengoku period; researching about the relationship of power such as the Daimyo, temples, and local loads surrounding the city.