The 17th century ushered in a new age of book publishing in Japan. In the first two decades, private run publishing houses emerged in the capital of Kyōto, laying the foundation for a highly commercialized publishing industry which also spread to the cities of Edo and Ōsaka. For the publishers, book publishing became both a very profitable and competitive business, and more and more publishers and print products began to compete for their readers’ favor.

Within this vibrant publishing business, the market for practical guidebooks (jitsuyōsho) flourished particularly. “Guides for letter writing” (ōraimono), “everyday encyclopedias” (chōhōki), or “aids for correct writing in Chinese characters” (setsuyōshū), to name only a few genres, became main pillars for many publishing businesses that began to specialize in the production of non-fictional books. The huge number of practical guidebooks published during the Edo period impressively shows that “knowledge” had become a popular, and, above all, lucrative “commodity”.

This conference will conclude the research project “The Revision of Knowledge”, which has been funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) over the last three years. Contributions feature examinations of all kinds of practical guidebooks regarding their impact on pre-modern cultural life, as well as analyses of practices and strategies in publishing, disseminating, or archiving “knowledge”.

For further information, please see the project homepage as well as the conference schedule.