Event by JSOS.
Date – 13th May 2024 at 7pm
Venue – University of Edinburgh, 50 George Square – Project Room 1.06
Guest Speaker – Prof. Richard Irving
Topic of the talk:
The most recent dramatization of James Clavell’s novel “Shogun” by Disney+ has renewed interest in the real story behind the fictional character of John Blackthorne, the English navigator who became a samurai. This man, who became a trusted retainer of Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, was William Adams, a mariner of humble origins from Gillingham, in Kent, born in the year 1564. “Shogun” is a thrilling read, and the recent re-make is praised for its gritty realism. But, just as many of the events described in the novel are contrived or, to say the least, made-up, so too are many aspects of the stories told of William Adams. Following years of extensive research on the topic, Dr. Richard Irving will sift the fantasies and realities of the intertwined lives of John Blackthorne and Adams, and of the various accounts of this real Elizabethan era sailor/samurai. Richard’s talk will present many contemporary maps and images rarely seen before and conclude with comments on the recent excavation of Adams’ grave in Japan, a project in which the speaker was directly involved.
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About the Guest Speaker:
Richard Irving graduated from Sheffield University in 1976 having read geography and Japanese studies. After two years at the University of Kyoto where he conducted research into rural depopulation, he returned to Sheffield to complete his PhD. Later, he went on to lecture in the Department of Geography and Geology at the University of Hong Kong, followed by almost 25 years spent as professor at the School of Policy Studies at Kwansei Gakuin University near Kobe. He retired in 2019 and now lives near Bath in Somerset.
Richard’s achievements include walking the entire length of the Nakasendo highway in the early 1990s, a project which led to him co-founding the successful tour company WalkJapan. More recently he has been writing a series of books on the life of William Adams, the fifth and final one of which will be published shortly.