E. C. Rath

Eric C. Rath

Sweet Culture: Confectionery in Early Modern Japan (1600-1868)

Description of Research:

My research on Japan focuses on the relationship between identity and the production and consumption of knowledge over the late medieval and early modern eras (1400-1868).  My first book, The Ethos of Noh: Actors and Their Art (2004), traced the professionalization of the masked noh drama within the transition from print to manuscript culture.  Print gave noh actors a means to standardize artistry and solidify institutional control, but it had a more democratizing effect on culinary culture as I documented in my second book, Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Japan (2010).  By spreading knowledge of culinary traditions and allowing more people to participate in creating them, print facilitated the creation of a cuisine, which required shared understanding of the potential of food to serve artistic and ritualistic purposes.  In a new research project on tobacco use, I contend that smoking represents an example of how print, performance, and visual media shaped purchasing habits, providing the first means for great numbers of people in Japan to define themselves through consumption.