Bushidō or Bust: Student Preconceptions of Samurai and What to Do with Them

Japan’s premodern warriors are a powerful and global pop culture force. Nearly every student enrolled in a course on Japan or indeed East Asia broadly brings with them deeply ingrained images of what a samurai was and what samurai did, whether they were brutal actors in bloody civil warfare or honor-bound soldiers touting the “code of bushidō” in a way more analogous to European knights of chivalric lore. Yet these ideas of samurai history, and by extension Japanese culture, remain firmly stuck in an early to mid twentieth century vision of “warrior Japan” that is at once anachronistic and Western-centric. How can educators best teach a topic so well-known and so imbued with a highly idealized mythology?

This talk will address pedagogical approaches to the balancing act of teaching samurai history in Japan and East Asian history courses in a way that challenges preconceptions, invites critical reflection, and retains nuance. Far more than “myth busting” that can dampen student enthusiasm or uncritically reinforce imaginative retellings of history, it is essential to engage the gap between representation and historical record. Drawing on examples from classroom exercises and scholarly public engagement, I present some of the ways educators can preserve student interest while equipping them with the skills necessary to deconstruct historical memory and narrative-making about the past.