Daniel Bargon

My research seeks to unravel and explain the literary landscape during the bakumatsu and early Meiji periods. In a time of extreme political and cultural turmoil, those authors who made a living through popular comic fiction adapted to change in a variety of ways. Some authors followed the flow of popular trends, while others challenged them. My goal is to shed light on less canonical works of literature and the state of the publishing industry during this tumultuous period which better demonstrate the sheer richness of discourse within the public sphere. My current long-term project is a comprehensive analysis of the life and literary output of the author Mantei Ōga (1819-1890). Beginning his career in the latter decades of the Edo period, he produced an impressive illustrated biography of the Buddha leading up to the Meiji Restoration, after which he shifted his focus to parodying and poking fun at popular modern thinkers of the time, chief among them Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835-1901). Other projects include analysis of female literacy through the printmaker Nishikawa Sukenobu (1671-1750), as well as applying the concepts of adaptation across wide time scales.