Samurai, scouts, and suffragettes: Japan and the medievalisation of the modern world

Join Professor Oleg Benesch from the Department of History for his YorkTalk exploring the fascinating interplay between samurai warriors, the British Boy Scout movement and campaigns for women’s suffrage at the turn of the 20th century.

Oleg draws on his research in East Asia to show the cultural flows of medievalist trends between Asia and the Western world. In the case of “the way of the samurai”, which was invented in Japan in response to Western ideals of chivalry and gentlemanship, he reveals how these Japanese medievalist ideals of the samurai then travelled “back” to Britain to influence the development of social movements as diverse as the Boy Scouts and campaigns for women’s suffrage. Legacies that continue to echo today.

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