Barbarians: Fierce and Friendly

Like people elsewhere, Japanese throughout their history have encountered aliens in reality and in fantasy, and then have tried to incorporate them into their view of the world. Ronald P. Toby, noted Japanese historian, examines ways in which the Japanese have expressed their understanding of the foreign such as Koreans, Okinawans, Chinese and Americans, both black and white. The program includes a rich array of drawings, paintings and other visual images, mostly from eighteenth and nineteenth century Japan, showing aliens in popular art and aliens as enacted in festivals of the era. The program is suitable for use at the secondary school level and above, for courses not only about Japan but also about ethnic relations anywhere.