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Kate Carpenter: Hey there! This
is the Drafting the Past

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podcast. I'm your host Kate
Carpenter, and in each episode,

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I interview a historian about
how they research and write

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history. Today's guest has been
requested by several listeners,

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but I'm embarrassed to admit
that I only recently read her

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work on early modern Japanese
history. When I did, though, I

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was blown away, and I'm thrilled
to be joined by Dr. Amy Stanley

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to talk about how she writes
history.

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Amy Stanley: I'm so happy to be
here.

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Kate Carpenter: Amy is a
professor of history at

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Northwestern University and the
author of two books. The first

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was *Selling Women:
Prostitution, Markets, and the

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Household in Early Modern
Japan.* Her second book, which

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came out in 2020, was *Stranger
in the Shogun City: A Japanese

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Woman and Her World.* It's a
remarkable book that follows the

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story of one unconventional
woman in 1800s Japan, bringing

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to life the rural villages and
the vibrant urban center of Edo

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where she lived in the process.
The storytelling is captivating,

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the writing gorgeous. The book
went on to earn many

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well-deserved honors, including
the National Book Critics Circle

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Award in Biography and the PEN
Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for

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Biography. And it was a finalist
for the Pulitzer Prize in

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Biography. It will not surprise
anyone who has read her work to

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learn that Amy loves and thinks
deeply about the writing process

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and constructing a rich
narrative from sometimes

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difficult sources. We talked
about how she did it, even while

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deep in the trenches of raising
two small children. Here's my

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conversation with Dr. Amy
Stanley.

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Amy Stanley: I've probably
always wanted to be a writer,

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even more than I wanted to be a
historian, and I think that

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history and Japanese
history-that's the genre that I

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work in. But I really think of
myself as a writer first, and

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having this academic job and
teaching students, which is

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wonderful, is also kind of an
excuse to do what I would prefer

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to do, which is write all the
time, and I think that my

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interest in writing-I mean, I
think like a lot of people

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started when I was a kid and I
was a huge reader, and I

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particularly liked historical
fiction. So any kind of

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historical fiction where there
was a little girl in the past

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who was trying to figure out her
life was my favorite thing to

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read, and I remember, you know,
one of the books I read over and

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over again was *The Witch of
Blackbird Pond* but also

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anything like *The Little House
on the Prairie* series, or

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things that at the time weren't
even historical fiction, like

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*The Anne of Green Gables*
series, or particularly my

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favorite was *Emily of New
Moon.* I love that book. I still

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reread it all the time. Those
were kind of my introduction to

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the idea of being a writer, and
because some of the protagonists

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in those books are writers
themselves or emerging writers,

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I think that's where I got the
idea that that was something

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that I wanted to do. So I always
kept a journal. I was always

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really excited to do writing
assignments in elementary school

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or in high school, and I think
you know as I developed as an

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academic and you know got my PhD
in East Asian languages and

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civilizations, the writing kind
of took a backseat to the

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research and all the language
acquisition. But it was really

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my first love.

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Kate Carpenter: Well, let's
start with just kind of the

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details of your work. So, when
and where do you like to do

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writing?

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Amy Stanley: I think for a lot
of my writing, particularly of

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the book that we're talking
about, *Stranger in the Shogun

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City,* it wasn't a case of where
I liked to do my writing. It was

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a case of where I could do my
writing. So, I had two little

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kids at the time. So I think I
signed the contract for that

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book when my kids were something
like five and two. And so I

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wrote wherever I could. And some
of that book was actually

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composed on my phone while I was
rocking my kids to sleep, or at

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birthday parties when I'd find a
quiet corner, or I remember a

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particular indoor play space
where I used to take my kids in

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the winter, and I wouldn't say
those were my preferred places

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to do my writing, but that's
where the writing could happen,

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and so that's where it happened.
Now that my kids are older and I

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have more time and I have more
space, I do a lot of writing in

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coffee shops. I do some in my
office. I do some on my front

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porch, but I will really write
wherever I feel like writing and

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whenever I have the opportunity.

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Kate Carpenter: Do you try to
write every day, or do you go

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sort of through periods where
you write more and less?

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Amy Stanley: You know, I think I
don't have a particular

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discipline where I try to write
every day because when I am into

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a piece of writing, I want to be
working on it all the time, and

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I would rather be writing than
you know planning for class or

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making dinner or any of the
other things that generally have

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to happen in everyday life. So I
tend to write at odd times, and

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in times when I probably
shouldn't be writing, so I don't

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have a particular idea of okay,
I'm going to write from this

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time to this time. That being
said, there are obviously times

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when you know I'm I'm really
into you know have to be grading

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or you know I'm I'm traveling or
something else is happening and

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I'm not writing. But my basic
baseline is: if I'm not writing

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something, then I'm generally
not happy. So I write pretty

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much all the time.

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Kate Carpenter: How do you like
to organize your sources and

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your writing?

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Amy Stanley: Ah, this is a
really big problem because I am

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not by nature a super organized
person, and for me, all of the

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stuff about organization, like
putting your stuff into a

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citation manager, or figuring
out which word processor to use,

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or figuring out like what to do
about tagging your photos from

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the archive, is always to me
time that I could better be

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spent writing because that's
what I'd rather be doing. So

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that results in a like a kind of
disorganization in general, but

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luckily I did know that when I
wrote this book, Stranger in the

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Shogun City, about Japan, that
eventually it would be

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translated into Japanese, and I
would need to have my sources

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very organized so that the
translators could go back to

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them. But I have a very
primitive system, which is

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basically that I have a big
folder that's entitled the

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Nanzenji monjo, which is the
archival collection I used, and

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it's organized by year. And
there's a folder for the year,

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and then there are all the
letters that I used or all the

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documents that I used in that
folder, and then my notes are

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basically just Word documents,
and they're entitled "Notes from

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So and So." They're all dumped
into a big folder, "Notes for

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the Book." And sometimes they're
organized by chapter, and

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sometimes they're not, and
sometimes I just need to keyword

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search them to find them in my
Dropbox. So, I mean, I am not a

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paragon of research
organization, but luckily I can

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find what I need basically 100%
of the time.

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Kate Carpenter: That's what
matters.

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Amy Stanley: Yes, that really
truly does matter because in the

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translation project for this
book, which was recently

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translated, as I said, back into
Japanese, I was constantly

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getting queries from the
translator like, "Can you find

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this document? Can you find this
document? And thank goodness I

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could find all of them. And then
I think, okay, going forward, I

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should be even more organized
and even more aware of where

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everything is. But of course, it
never works that way because you

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know, you write for this many
years and you're kind of set in

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your ways, and you can't do
things a different way.

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Kate Carpenter: Absolutely.
Where in the research process do

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you like to start writing?

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Amy Stanley: I like to be
writing all the time. I love

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research in primary sources
mostly. I like, I love to read

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primary sources. Reading around
in secondary sources is not

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always my favorite thing, but I
can make myself do the reading

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in secondary sources if I have
an idea or a question or a

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writing project that I'm already
working on, and that means that

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for me, writing and research
basically happen at the same

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time. I have to find something
first, so usually it's an

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archival discovery that will get
me going. But what will make me

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excited is the process of
writing. So it becomes, I mean,

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I don't know. Like everyone, I
write many, many, many drafts,

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but I always start writing
before I'm quote unquote ready

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to start writing. And the
writing is actually what

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motivates the research, and not
the other way around.

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Kate Carpenter: Interesting. How
do you approach revision?

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Amy Stanley: Oh, I approach
revision like it is a

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compulsion. It's a compulsive
activity. So basically, you

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know, like everyone, I will sit
down and, you know, write. I

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won't won't even say that I
start by writing a terrible

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first draft. I will start by
writing something, and then that

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will motivate me to do more of
the research that I need to kind

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of piece together in order to
make a robust version of that

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thing that's not even a draft.
After that, there will be some

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point where I will be very
excited and I will write a very

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very messy and terrible first
draft. And then there's the

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worst part of the writing
process because you, I always

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feel like when I've written down
that first draft, yay, I've done

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it! I have something on the
page. It's awesome. And then

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there comes the part where you
reread that first draft, and

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it's terrible. And you think, oh
no, what am I going to do? I

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thought this was good, and it's
actually terrible. And then you

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have to do that first revision,
which to me is always the

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hardest part, and then I do
maybe a first revision, a second

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revision, maybe get up to the
fifth revision. I'm like, okay,

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this is very polished. It's very
nice now. I can send it out to

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people, and then of course the
minute I press send, I think, oh

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no, it's actually terrible, and
at that point, I take the whole

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thing usually and put it in a
document that, for superstitious

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reasons, I will call always
sandbox because it can't be it

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can't be formal, it can't be the
quote unquote real version. It

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has to be something that I'm
pretending is just a random

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experiment. And at that point,
even though it's already out at

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some reader and I am feeling
humiliated about this fact that

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I sent it out, and it's
terrible. I will start

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reorganizing all the different
parts, and then that sandbox

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will become the real document,
and then it will go through

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about 20 more revisions before
it's an actual real draft. But I

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cannot streamline the process,
and it's the exact same kind of

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conjunction of chaotic things
every single time I try to do it

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Kate Carpenter: I love that so
much. Have you found that your

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approach to writing has changed
over the course of your career?

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Amy Stanley: Probably not.
Actually, I think it's always

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been more or less the same, and
particularly that same feeling

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of the minute I send something
out because I think it's

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polished is the minute when I
decide no, actually, the full

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thing has to be changed, and so
I think what I've become a

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little bit more strategic about
is who I send it to first, so

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that you know when you're a
graduate student, for example,

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like the first person you send
things to is often your advisor,

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and that really is the person
you do not want to see the

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version that you've just decided
is absolutely terrible. So I

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think what has changed about my
process is I now have a very

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kind of specific order of
readers in mind, and I know you

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know how they go, so that it's
only after I've done the sent

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out a polished first draft that
I decided was terrible, put it

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in the sandbox and rearranged it
and revised it 10 times, that it

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goes to somebody who is only, I
only feel comfortable sending

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them an actually good version.

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Kate Carpenter: So that's really
interesting to me because your

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your first book was kind of a
more traditional academic

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monograph, and your second book,
of course, Stranger in the

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Shogun City, is an incredible
narrative history, a trade book.

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Were there things you had to
learn or unlearn? How did you

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shift from one mode to another?

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Amy Stanley: I think that's
something that people often ask

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and answer in a different way
than I do because a lot of

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people say, "Well, I had to like
unlearn academic writing in

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order to relearn how to explain
myself in a kind of more popular

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mode." I feel like there
definitely is a difference

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between academic writing and the
kind of writing that I did in

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Stranger in the Shogun City. But
I wouldn't say that one comes

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more naturally to me than the
other. And because I've written

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in journals basically all my
life, I think that the voice

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that I used in my own private
writing was pretty close to the

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narrative voice that I used in
Stranger in the Shogun City, and

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I didn't have an experience
where I had written a kind of

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academic version that I then
needed to go back and rewrite in

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a different way, even though I
actually published an academic

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version in the American
Historical Review before I wrote

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the book, but even that article
in the AHR, which is also about

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Tsuneno and her life and kind of
analyzes her experiences in a

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different way, it uses more
specialized academic

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terminology. But I think the
basic principles of how a

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sentence should be, how a
paragraph should go, or you

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know, what you do in a
conclusion are pretty much the

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same. And I've always felt in my
entire academic career, you

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know, whether it's academic
writing or other forms of

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writing, if I get kind of two
thirds of the way through a

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draft, and I can't see the
conclusion, if the concluding

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paragraph doesn't kind of come
to me, then I'm doing something

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wrong. So I always feel like
that concluding paragraph is the

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most important part of writing
anything. And if you don't see

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it, then there's something wrong
with what you've done before.

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Kate Carpenter: Do you then go
back before you get to the

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concluding paragraph, or how do
you get to the point that you

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have one?

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Amy Stanley: Yes, because if I
write like two thirds of the way

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through and I'm still thinking I
don't see the conclusion, then I

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know that I am not writing
towards something, and it's kind

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of like, you know, the the basic
level of this is in

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undergraduate writing when you
assign your your undergraduates

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an essay and then you know they
they'll give you their kind of,

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you know, topic paragraph thesis
paragraph and then they'll give

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you all the examples and they'll
give you the conclusion. One of

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the things I always tell them is
if you can rearrange your body

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paragraphs in a different order,
then you do not have an

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argument. You just have a
proposition and a series of

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examples, and you need to kind
of tie the argument all the way

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through. And at the point where
you can't put those paragraphs

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in a different order is when you
know that you will have momentum

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toward a conclusion. And I think
momentum toward a conclusion is

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really important, and so if you
don't have it, you need to go

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back and rethink about how your
structure is working and how

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your argument is working.

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Kate Carpenter: Amazing, that's
really great advice. Okay, so

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and I know you've talked and
written about this elsewhere,

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but for listeners who don't
know, I'm wondering if you can

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tell us how you found the story
that became Stranger in the

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Shogun City, and especially, you
know, I feel like micro

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histories are not always obvious
as books, you know, that it it

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takes sort of seeing the
potential in a story. So, when

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did you know that this was a
book?

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Amy Stanley: So, in in some
sense, I always knew that it was

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a book, but in another sense, I
didn't know that I could

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actually pull it off. So the
story of it is a little

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00:15:44,490 --> 00:15:48,540
complicated because it actually,
the idea for this book or my

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encounter with the series of
documents that became this book

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came out of teaching. I'd been
assigned to teach the survey

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class on early modern Japan,
which is like my bread and

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butter course, and I wanted to
give the students primary

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sources to read, the kinds of
things that you would find in a

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village archive, early modern
Japan. Many people don't know

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this, but it's probably the best
documented early modern society

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on the face of the earth. I
mean, there are documents

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everywhere, and they are in
private collections and in

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public collections, they're
sitting around in people's

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attics. I mean, there are just
documents all over the place.

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Very, very literate society, so
a lot was preserved. But I

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didn't feel like there was
enough at the time in

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00:16:34,440 --> 00:16:37,380
translation to assign to my
students, so they would get a

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00:16:37,380 --> 00:16:41,235
sense of like the breadth of
things that were available. So I

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very ambitiously thought, okay,
well I can translate some of

286
00:16:44,715 --> 00:16:48,255
these things myself, and then
give them to my students. And I

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had this whole exercise where I
printed out, I translated and

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00:16:53,115 --> 00:16:56,805
printed out a lot of documents
that were the kinds of things

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00:16:56,805 --> 00:17:00,495
that you would find in a village
archive, put them all in random

290
00:17:00,495 --> 00:17:04,830
order in archival boxes, and had
my students do an exercise where

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they created a finding aid as if
they were archivists, like

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receiving all this material, and
then used the archive to write

293
00:17:11,550 --> 00:17:16,170
their papers. So it was a very
kind of analog activity, and it

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00:17:16,170 --> 00:17:18,870
was the best I could do for
students who didn't have any

295
00:17:18,870 --> 00:17:23,400
exposure to Japan or Japanese to
mimic this idea of going into

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00:17:23,400 --> 00:17:26,085
the archive and finding
documents without having any

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00:17:26,085 --> 00:17:29,205
context at all and having to
kind of organize them and figure

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out what they were about. So I
was looking for things to put

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into this archive, and I went to
the homepage of the prefectural

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00:17:37,965 --> 00:17:41,115
archive of Niigata Prefecture. A
Japanese prefecture is like an

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00:17:41,115 --> 00:17:44,925
American state. Niigata is on
the Japan Sea coast. Many people

302
00:17:44,925 --> 00:17:48,570
know the city of Niigata, but
it's also a prefecture. I'd done

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some work there for my first
book, so I knew that it was a

304
00:17:51,360 --> 00:17:54,060
well-organized archive, and I
thought, okay, maybe there would

305
00:17:54,060 --> 00:17:58,230
be something here. And it turned
out, really luckily for me, that

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00:17:58,230 --> 00:18:01,590
as part of their public mission,
they had created what they

307
00:18:01,590 --> 00:18:05,220
called an internet document
reading course, in which they

308
00:18:05,220 --> 00:18:08,460
introduced kind of interesting
documents that they had in the

309
00:18:08,460 --> 00:18:12,525
archive, and then transcribed
them, which is very important

310
00:18:12,525 --> 00:18:15,855
because even modern Japanese
people can't read the

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paleography from earlier eras.
So you'll often find, you know,

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00:18:20,085 --> 00:18:22,935
people have these things in
their house that maybe their

313
00:18:22,935 --> 00:18:25,815
ancestors have collected, and
they can't read them themselves.

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00:18:25,815 --> 00:18:28,185
And so they'll come to the
archive with these documents and

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00:18:28,185 --> 00:18:30,945
say, "Please help me read." So
part of the public service that

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00:18:30,945 --> 00:18:34,890
a Japanese archive provides is
teaching people how to read

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00:18:34,890 --> 00:18:37,350
older Japanese sources,
manuscripts that are

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00:18:37,350 --> 00:18:41,430
handwritten. So in service of
this, they had this internet

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document reading course where
they'd give examples of

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documents from the archive, then
they'd have transcriptions, and

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then they'd have explanations.
So some of these things are like

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00:18:50,730 --> 00:18:54,690
you know a document that a
traveler might carry on the road

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00:18:54,690 --> 00:18:58,665
as a travel pass, or something
like a village headman is

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petitioning to buy some people
from his village who have gone

325
00:19:02,955 --> 00:19:05,805
to other villages into service
back, so they can come back and

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00:19:05,805 --> 00:19:10,875
be farmers. And some of them
were letters relating to this

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00:19:10,875 --> 00:19:14,865
woman named Tsuneno. And the
first letter I encountered was a

328
00:19:14,865 --> 00:19:18,585
letter written by a woman named
Tsuneno, who had found herself

329
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in the big city of Edo, which is
now Tokyo, in 1839, and she was

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00:19:23,220 --> 00:19:27,210
writing a letter back to her
mother, and she said, "I made it

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to Edo. I'm in this
neighborhood, Kanda Minagawa

332
00:19:29,790 --> 00:19:33,810
Cho. I found myself in so much
trouble, but actually now things

333
00:19:33,810 --> 00:19:38,370
are going pretty well." And the
thing that I remember most

334
00:19:38,370 --> 00:19:43,245
vividly from this letter is she
said, 'I have no trouble about

335
00:19:43,245 --> 00:19:43,695
food.

336
00:19:43,695 --> 00:19:49,065
Everything in Edo is delicious,"
and that to me was like so kind

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00:19:49,065 --> 00:19:52,935
of relatable. Like you know, I,
everybody goes to Tokyo now, and

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00:19:52,935 --> 00:19:56,085
they say, "Oh, everything in
Tokyo is delicious." And it was

339
00:19:56,085 --> 00:19:59,175
really interesting to me to hear
somebody in 1839 saying, "Yeah,

340
00:19:59,175 --> 00:20:01,605
everything in Edo was
delicious," and in the

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00:20:01,605 --> 00:20:04,905
explanation that the archive
gave, they said, you know, we

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00:20:04,950 --> 00:20:08,430
have a lot of letters from
Tsuneno and her family members

343
00:20:08,430 --> 00:20:10,800
in the archive in this
collection called the Nanzenji

344
00:20:10,800 --> 00:20:14,820
Monjo, and her life is really
interesting because eventually

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she married a man who ended up
in the service of a very famous

346
00:20:18,630 --> 00:20:22,200
Edo City magistrate who is a
samurai, Who's a figure who

347
00:20:22,200 --> 00:20:26,670
appears all the time on in
popular fiction and in like

348
00:20:26,670 --> 00:20:30,165
historical television shows. And
you know, if you want to come to

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00:20:30,165 --> 00:20:32,895
the archive, you can see all
these letters. And so I thought,

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00:20:32,895 --> 00:20:35,235
well, yeah, I want to go the
archive. I want to see all these

351
00:20:35,235 --> 00:20:38,535
letters. So I went to the
archive and started

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00:20:38,535 --> 00:20:42,465
photographing the letters. And
as I relate in the book, the

353
00:20:42,465 --> 00:20:45,615
problem was the paleography. I
could not read them. I couldn't

354
00:20:45,615 --> 00:20:49,065
read Tsuneno's handwriting,
which was difficult because she

355
00:20:49,065 --> 00:20:52,950
wrote in the phonetic alphabet
and in her own regional accent.

356
00:20:52,950 --> 00:20:55,530
I couldn't read her brother's
letters because they wrote in

357
00:20:55,530 --> 00:20:59,130
complicated Chinese characters.
I could read 19th-century

358
00:20:59,130 --> 00:21:03,150
Japanese when it was transcribed
and printed, and I had a little

359
00:21:03,150 --> 00:21:06,690
training in paleography, but as
most historians know, letters

360
00:21:06,690 --> 00:21:10,080
are the hardest things to read
because people will refer to

361
00:21:10,080 --> 00:21:13,410
things that they know and their
interlocutors know, and

362
00:21:13,410 --> 00:21:17,025
historians have no idea what
they're talking about. So I was

363
00:21:17,025 --> 00:21:21,045
confronted with, you know, over
100 letters that I had

364
00:21:21,045 --> 00:21:24,915
photographed and could not read,
and so I had this kind of

365
00:21:24,915 --> 00:21:28,575
intuitive sense that there's an
amazing story here, but I don't

366
00:21:28,575 --> 00:21:31,455
know if I have the technical
skills to pull it off. And then,

367
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meanwhile, I had to get tenure,
and so in order to get tenure, I

368
00:21:36,195 --> 00:21:39,300
had to have my first book, which
I did, and then I had to have

369
00:21:39,300 --> 00:21:42,600
quote unquote meaningful
progress on a second project, so

370
00:21:42,600 --> 00:21:46,290
I needed to demonstrate a second
project that was going to be

371
00:21:46,290 --> 00:21:49,980
like even bigger and better than
my first project and show my

372
00:21:49,980 --> 00:21:54,960
career trajectory. And so I
thought to myself, this can't be

373
00:21:54,960 --> 00:21:58,590
my real second project because
of this kind of preconception

374
00:21:58,590 --> 00:22:04,095
that microhistory is a small and
irrelevant thing, and also I

375
00:22:04,095 --> 00:22:07,335
don't know if I actually can
pull it off. So I had this whole

376
00:22:07,335 --> 00:22:11,115
other idea for a second project,
which I put in my tenure file

377
00:22:11,115 --> 00:22:15,735
and could be convincing about.
And yet, even then, this was the

378
00:22:15,735 --> 00:22:18,645
project I was really passionate
about. So even in my tenure

379
00:22:18,645 --> 00:22:21,405
statement, I had this little
paragraph about yet I'm also

380
00:22:21,405 --> 00:22:23,610
working on this other thing
about all these letters from

381
00:22:23,610 --> 00:22:28,350
this Japanese woman in the early
19th century, and then as I was

382
00:22:28,350 --> 00:22:31,380
kind of considering whether to
push on with this or whether it

383
00:22:31,380 --> 00:22:34,140
would just prove to be too
technically difficult to

384
00:22:34,140 --> 00:22:37,620
actually do, I had a
conversation with my senior

385
00:22:37,620 --> 00:22:41,310
colleague. His name is Ed Muir,
and he does the history of the

386
00:22:41,310 --> 00:22:45,240
Renaissance, and he actually has
worked in microhistory too. But

387
00:22:45,240 --> 00:22:48,705
he's a great source of kind of
wisdom and career advice of all

388
00:22:48,705 --> 00:22:52,635
kinds. And I remember sitting
with him in a room downstairs in

389
00:22:52,635 --> 00:22:55,095
our department, saying, "Ed, I
just don't know what to do with

390
00:22:55,095 --> 00:22:58,815
my second project." And he said,
"You have to go big with your

391
00:22:58,815 --> 00:23:01,695
second project because your
second project is often what

392
00:23:01,695 --> 00:23:05,415
makes your career, but you
shouldn't be put off by the

393
00:23:05,415 --> 00:23:09,600
technical difficulty because
there you can actually push

394
00:23:09,600 --> 00:23:13,650
yourself right up to the edge of
what you can do." And he said,

395
00:23:13,650 --> 00:23:16,950
"and in my second book, I did
that same thing. I had these

396
00:23:16,950 --> 00:23:19,980
really difficult documents, and
I had to push to the very edge

397
00:23:19,980 --> 00:23:25,200
of what I could do." And as I
said before, at the time I was,

398
00:23:25,200 --> 00:23:29,430
I had babies, right? So I was
raising a, I think my younger

399
00:23:29,430 --> 00:23:33,075
son was then maybe one and a
half, and one of the things

400
00:23:33,075 --> 00:23:37,425
about toddlers and babies is you
see them every single day push

401
00:23:37,425 --> 00:23:40,725
themselves absolutely to what
the edge of they could what they

402
00:23:40,725 --> 00:23:42,495
can do is, and then they fail.

403
00:23:42,495 --> 00:23:45,915
You know, they try to walk so
many times and they fall down.

404
00:23:45,915 --> 00:23:49,065
They try to say sentences and
they can't get them out, and

405
00:23:49,065 --> 00:23:52,425
they just persist every day
until they can. And I always

406
00:23:52,425 --> 00:23:55,575
found something kind of
inspiring and moving in that.

407
00:23:55,875 --> 00:23:59,310
And so I think I thought once I
actually did succeed in getting

408
00:23:59,310 --> 00:24:03,570
tenure, I can push myself to the
edge of what I can do and trust

409
00:24:03,570 --> 00:24:07,320
that eventually it will be fine.
So even though it was such a

410
00:24:07,320 --> 00:24:11,010
long and difficult process to
read those documents, I did

411
00:24:11,010 --> 00:24:13,350
reach a point where it was like,
you know what? I'm just going to

412
00:24:13,350 --> 00:24:16,470
say this is a book, and
eventually I'm going to be able

413
00:24:16,470 --> 00:24:19,245
to do it, and that is in fact
what happened.

414
00:24:19,425 --> 00:24:22,184
Kate Carpenter: That's amazing.
I also want to know, okay, so

415
00:24:22,245 --> 00:24:25,741
this trove of letters is
incredible. What what an amazing

416
00:24:25,802 --> 00:24:29,788
resource! But it also seems like
it's, it was probably not enough

417
00:24:29,850 --> 00:24:33,590
to write an entire book and the
entire narrative. How did you

418
00:24:33,652 --> 00:24:37,208
think about reconstructing the
rest of Tsuneno's world and

419
00:24:37,270 --> 00:24:40,275
circumstances? What were your
approaches to that?

420
00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:43,799
Amy Stanley: This was also kind
of a worry because the the kind

421
00:24:43,868 --> 00:24:48,252
of the source base has all these
gaps in it, right? So, like, I

422
00:24:48,322 --> 00:24:52,636
think the entire first chapter
of the book, I only really have

423
00:24:52,706 --> 00:24:56,394
one primary source about
Tsuneno's life to go on, and

424
00:24:56,463 --> 00:25:00,917
it's just a record of gifts that
she received when she was born.

425
00:25:00,986 --> 00:25:05,162
And I didn't even find that
source until after I had written

426
00:25:05,231 --> 00:25:09,337
a draft of the entire book. So
the original version of that

427
00:25:09,406 --> 00:25:13,790
first chapter didn't even have
that, and so it became this idea

428
00:25:13,860 --> 00:25:18,035
of you know how do you write
about a life in periods when it

429
00:25:18,105 --> 00:25:22,280
is entirely undocumented, and I
kind of had the idea that by

430
00:25:22,349 --> 00:25:26,316
filling in the negative space
around a person, by kind of

431
00:25:26,385 --> 00:25:30,769
describing the world in all of
its like intense sensory detail,

432
00:25:30,839 --> 00:25:34,457
you can kind of create an
outline of the person that

433
00:25:34,527 --> 00:25:38,563
should be there, so that's how I
thought about doing it. I

434
00:25:38,632 --> 00:25:43,016
thought about kind of what kinds
of materials can I use to give

435
00:25:43,086 --> 00:25:47,470
you the sense of the world that
this person lived in so vividly

436
00:25:47,539 --> 00:25:51,923
that you feel like that person
is actually there. And I think I

437
00:25:51,993 --> 00:25:56,238
also thought, in regard to the
really problematic part of the

438
00:25:56,307 --> 00:26:00,830
book, in which you know, for the
first maybe you know at least 14

439
00:26:00,900 --> 00:26:04,657
years of her life, we have
nothing, and then her first

440
00:26:04,727 --> 00:26:08,763
marriage we also have almost
nothing, and the story really

441
00:26:08,833 --> 00:26:13,008
starts when she's 35. I did
think about I keep talking about

442
00:26:13,077 --> 00:26:17,113
my kids, but it was really-I
mean, to me, this book really

443
00:26:17,183 --> 00:26:21,636
came out of a particular moment
in life when I was raising small

444
00:26:21,706 --> 00:26:26,020
children, and I thought about
the experience of being a child,

445
00:26:26,090 --> 00:26:30,265
and I also thought about what
does a reader need in order to

446
00:26:30,335 --> 00:26:34,162
understand the rest of the
narrative, and so the reader

447
00:26:34,231 --> 00:26:38,546
needs a whole introduction to
Japan in the early 19th century.

448
00:26:38,615 --> 00:26:42,999
What is Japan like around 1804,
1805? But I didn't just want to

449
00:26:43,069 --> 00:26:46,826
write, okay, this is my
introductory chapter, and then

450
00:26:46,896 --> 00:26:51,071
I'm going to get you into the
story. So I thought about, you

451
00:26:51,141 --> 00:26:55,107
know, watching my own children,
like how do you come into

452
00:26:55,177 --> 00:26:59,352
knowledge about the world that
you live in, and the way that

453
00:26:59,422 --> 00:27:03,457
children experience the world
is, you know, first the only

454
00:27:03,527 --> 00:27:07,563
thing they know is like their
mom and maybe their dad, and

455
00:27:07,633 --> 00:27:11,321
then they start kind of
exploring the house, and then

456
00:27:11,390 --> 00:27:15,496
they kind of come to understand
the neighborhood, and their

457
00:27:15,565 --> 00:27:19,601
world enlarges in concentric
circles, and I thought, okay,

458
00:27:19,671 --> 00:27:24,055
that device of being a child and
coming to understand the world

459
00:27:24,124 --> 00:27:28,300
can be the way that I order the
reader's introduction to the

460
00:27:28,369 --> 00:27:32,544
world as well. And so, in that
kind of first chapter where I

461
00:27:32,614 --> 00:27:36,650
have nothing to go on, I am
doing two, two or three things

462
00:27:36,720 --> 00:27:40,477
at once. One is creating the
negative space around the

463
00:27:40,547 --> 00:27:44,374
person, so you feel like the
person's there. Another is

464
00:27:44,444 --> 00:27:48,201
taking you through the kind of
developmental stages of

465
00:27:48,271 --> 00:27:52,655
childhood, and then the other is
taking the reader through that

466
00:27:52,724 --> 00:27:57,108
same process, so that they will
come to understand the world in

467
00:27:57,178 --> 00:28:00,240
which the rest of the narrative
takes place.

468
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:02,765
Kate Carpenter: Wow, that's so
great! You obviously did

469
00:28:02,830 --> 00:28:06,975
incredible research. So much of
the brilliance of the narrative,

470
00:28:07,040 --> 00:28:11,184
though, comes from your empathy
as a writer-sort of your ability

471
00:28:11,249 --> 00:28:15,070
to imagine possibilities for
different people. I don't want

472
00:28:15,135 --> 00:28:18,956
to necessarily say like put
yourself in their shoes because

473
00:28:19,020 --> 00:28:23,036
we know that for historians it's
hard to ever exactly do that,

474
00:28:23,100 --> 00:28:26,921
but you really do like, even
though you don't know for sure

475
00:28:26,986 --> 00:28:30,937
how someone, including Tsuneno,
felt or reacted to something,

476
00:28:31,001 --> 00:28:34,758
you help the reader sort of
imagine the realistic options,

477
00:28:34,822 --> 00:28:38,643
and as a result, feel like we
might have a sense of how she

478
00:28:38,708 --> 00:28:42,659
felt or or what she did, even
when we don't know. Was it hard

479
00:28:42,723 --> 00:28:46,674
for you to think about writing
in that mode? How did you kind

480
00:28:46,739 --> 00:28:49,200
of imagine yourself into those spaces?

481
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:51,914
Amy Stanley: I love that you
mentioned shoes because shoes

482
00:28:51,974 --> 00:28:55,834
are really important. Actually,
literally, I thought a lot about

483
00:28:55,894 --> 00:28:59,453
shoes, and I thought a lot about
clothing because those are

484
00:28:59,513 --> 00:29:03,072
something I'm interested in in
my everyday life anyway. And

485
00:29:03,132 --> 00:29:06,871
shoes actually provide a really
good example of the way that I

486
00:29:06,932 --> 00:29:10,551
tried to get myself into the
world of the book. So, for most

487
00:29:10,611 --> 00:29:14,471
of the book, or for most of her
life, Tsuneno lived in a part of

488
00:29:14,531 --> 00:29:17,668
Japan that's called the Snow
Country, and in Niigata

489
00:29:17,728 --> 00:29:21,467
Prefecture, still today, there
is really a lot of snow, and it

490
00:29:21,528 --> 00:29:25,146
piles up so much that people
have to go up to their rooftops

491
00:29:25,207 --> 00:29:28,765
and shovel the snow off of it
because otherwise their roofs

492
00:29:28,826 --> 00:29:32,505
will collapse. It really is an
impressive amount of snow, and

493
00:29:32,565 --> 00:29:36,304
it's very cold. And I live in
Illinois, you know, near Chicago

494
00:29:36,365 --> 00:29:40,044
where Northwestern is, and I
hate the snow, but unfortunately

495
00:29:40,104 --> 00:29:43,542
it snows a lot almost every
winter, and one of the things

496
00:29:43,602 --> 00:29:47,342
that I really hate about when it
snows is that I can't wear my

497
00:29:47,402 --> 00:29:51,021
nice shoes to work because--I
walk to work--because I'll get

498
00:29:51,081 --> 00:29:54,519
ruined by the salt. And so when
I was thinking about like

499
00:29:54,579 --> 00:29:58,259
Tsuneno and her life and her
kind of experience of the world,

500
00:29:58,319 --> 00:30:01,757
I was thinking like, you know,
Japanese people in the Edo

501
00:30:01,817 --> 00:30:05,557
period basically wore what we
would think of as flip-flops and

502
00:30:05,617 --> 00:30:09,236
socks, but you know, how did
they walk around in all of this

503
00:30:09,296 --> 00:30:12,794
snow in these shoes? You know,
their, their toes must have

504
00:30:12,854 --> 00:30:16,594
frozen, and so then I started
looking up, you know, these like

505
00:30:16,654 --> 00:30:20,333
encyclopedias published in the
Edo period that would show you

506
00:30:20,394 --> 00:30:24,012
like the range of, you know,
straw boots that people wore in

507
00:30:24,073 --> 00:30:27,752
the snow, and thinking about,
you know, what it would be like

508
00:30:27,812 --> 00:30:31,491
to wear straw boots and clomp
around in all of this very very

509
00:30:31,552 --> 00:30:35,170
heavy snow, and then I thought
to myself, well like actually

510
00:30:35,231 --> 00:30:38,910
you know when I travel outside
of Illinois, like when I go to

511
00:30:38,970 --> 00:30:42,710
Miami to visit my in-laws in the
winter, one of the things I'm

512
00:30:42,770 --> 00:30:46,329
really happy about is there
isn't all this snow, so I don't

513
00:30:46,389 --> 00:30:50,249
have to wear my snow boots, and
I can wear my regular shoes, and

514
00:30:50,309 --> 00:30:53,928
that makes me feel really like
much more comfortable and and

515
00:30:53,988 --> 00:30:57,788
happy about my experience in the
world. And then I thought, oh,

516
00:30:57,848 --> 00:31:01,588
you know, when Tsuneno moved to
Edo where it doesn't snow, she

517
00:31:01,648 --> 00:31:04,905
must have had that same
experience because suddenly it

518
00:31:04,965 --> 00:31:08,403
is you know the first month of
the year, and everybody is

519
00:31:08,464 --> 00:31:12,203
walking around in their normal
geta, their normal kind of flip

520
00:31:12,263 --> 00:31:16,003
flop type shoes and socks, and
they don't have to put on these

521
00:31:16,063 --> 00:31:19,561
heavy snow boots. And that
detail actually is in the book.

522
00:31:19,622 --> 00:31:23,301
She must have thought it was,
you know, like I don't remember

523
00:31:23,361 --> 00:31:26,980
what I said, odd to be walking
around in her normal shoes at

524
00:31:27,040 --> 00:31:30,418
this time of year. And so I
think that that is a kind of

525
00:31:30,478 --> 00:31:33,614
evidence from experience, or
just from thinking very

526
00:31:33,675 --> 00:31:37,113
concretely about the kind of
details of material culture,

527
00:31:37,173 --> 00:31:40,792
that was a kind of way in to
thinking about another time and

528
00:31:40,852 --> 00:31:44,471
place and a person who is not
me. When you don't know what's

529
00:31:44,531 --> 00:31:47,969
going on exactly inside their
head, you do know about the

530
00:31:48,029 --> 00:31:51,708
tools that they used and what
the environment was like around

531
00:31:51,769 --> 00:31:55,508
them, and so I think that kind
of thinking was really helpful.

532
00:31:55,569 --> 00:31:59,187
But it's not infallible, and
often it's actually misleading.

533
00:31:59,248 --> 00:32:02,866
So I often would have to check
myself. So my best example of

534
00:32:02,927 --> 00:32:06,485
this is, I went to Tsuneno's
village, or what's left of it,

535
00:32:06,546 --> 00:32:10,406
and now it's a nature preserve.
And because I wanted to see, you

536
00:32:10,466 --> 00:32:14,205
know, what does this place look
like? What does it sound like?

537
00:32:14,266 --> 00:32:17,764
What, how are the mountains
arranged on the horizon? And I

538
00:32:17,824 --> 00:32:21,684
got there to this train station
that's kind of now in the middle

539
00:32:21,745 --> 00:32:24,941
of nowhere, and there was
nothing there, and I really

540
00:32:25,002 --> 00:32:28,560
couldn't use it. It was just
like you know grass and trees,

541
00:32:28,620 --> 00:32:32,300
and I stood there, and it was it
was in the middle of summer.

542
00:32:32,300 --> 00:32:36,484
It was really hot, and I was
like, well, you know, at least I

543
00:32:36,552 --> 00:32:40,668
can you know feel the heat and
the humidity, and I can hear,

544
00:32:40,737 --> 00:32:45,058
you know, the sounds of nature
that maybe she would have heard,

545
00:32:45,127 --> 00:32:48,968
and then I heard a really
familiar sound, which was this

546
00:32:49,037 --> 00:32:53,221
really bellowing croak of what I
knew was a bullfrog. And the

547
00:32:53,290 --> 00:32:57,269
reason I knew it was a bullfrog
is because I'd been to the

548
00:32:57,337 --> 00:33:01,659
nature museum in Chicago where I
used to take my kids, and they

549
00:33:01,727 --> 00:33:05,843
had this display where you could
press buttons and hear frog

550
00:33:05,912 --> 00:33:09,890
sounds, and the bullfrog has a
very distinct sound. And my

551
00:33:09,959 --> 00:33:14,143
older son was always terrified
of it, and he'd always push it

552
00:33:14,212 --> 00:33:18,396
and then like jump back and be
really horrified. And so I was

553
00:33:18,465 --> 00:33:22,855
like, "Oh, okay. Well, I heard a
bullfrog, so I can say you know

554
00:33:22,924 --> 00:33:27,245
something about like the sound
of bullfrogs." So I was somewhat

555
00:33:27,314 --> 00:33:31,155
satisfied with that. And then
the next day, I was having

556
00:33:31,224 --> 00:33:35,614
dinner with a Japanese historian
colleague, and I explained this

557
00:33:35,682 --> 00:33:39,867
whole experience in hearing a
bullfrog. And he said, "Oh, you

558
00:33:39,935 --> 00:33:43,845
met an American." And I said,
"What?" He said, "Yeah, all

559
00:33:43,914 --> 00:33:47,961
bullfrogs are American. They
were introduced with Commodore

560
00:33:48,030 --> 00:33:51,665
Perry in 1853," and so they
would not have existed in

561
00:33:51,734 --> 00:33:55,644
Tsuneno's time at all, and it
turns out that story is not

562
00:33:55,713 --> 00:34:00,034
true. They came to Japan later,
but it was a real reminder that

563
00:34:00,103 --> 00:34:04,424
even things you think you know
about the natural world that you

564
00:34:04,493 --> 00:34:08,814
think you can include are also
often historically situated, and

565
00:34:08,883 --> 00:34:12,793
so you have to do a lot of
research in order to really be

566
00:34:12,862 --> 00:34:17,046
able to use that evidence from
experience effectively. I also

567
00:34:17,115 --> 00:34:20,956
think that there are limits and
kind of controversies of

568
00:34:21,025 --> 00:34:25,003
thinking about about thinking
about embodied experience as

569
00:34:25,072 --> 00:34:29,393
something that's shared across
time. And I did my grad training

570
00:34:29,462 --> 00:34:33,715
in the late '90s and early 2000s
when it was taken for granted

571
00:34:33,784 --> 00:34:37,145
that you know all embodied
experience is socially

572
00:34:37,213 --> 00:34:41,192
constructed, and so that we
cannot really say anything for

573
00:34:41,260 --> 00:34:45,513
certain about you know the body
in a different time and place,

574
00:34:45,582 --> 00:34:49,561
and so you know according to
that idea that just because I

575
00:34:49,629 --> 00:34:54,019
know what nursing a baby is like
or was like in, you know, 2011,

576
00:34:54,088 --> 00:34:58,204
I don't necessarily know what it
was like in 1839. I came to

577
00:34:58,272 --> 00:35:02,525
think that I was not satisfied
with that explanation, and I do

578
00:35:02,594 --> 00:35:06,504
think that there are embodied
experiences that are shared

579
00:35:06,573 --> 00:35:10,757
across time, and so I did allow
myself to imagine things like

580
00:35:10,825 --> 00:35:14,461
you know wearing the shoes in
Edo, or you know not in

581
00:35:14,530 --> 00:35:18,714
Tsuneno's case because Tsuneno
herself did not have children,

582
00:35:18,783 --> 00:35:22,487
but in the case of her
sister-in-law Sano who had five

583
00:35:22,555 --> 00:35:26,946
children in a very short span of
time, I imagine myself to think

584
00:35:27,014 --> 00:35:30,856
about what grueling physical
labor that would be, and of

585
00:35:30,924 --> 00:35:34,903
course, it is historically
situated differently. There are

586
00:35:34,971 --> 00:35:39,019
no antibiotics, there is no
formula, but on the other hand,

587
00:35:39,087 --> 00:35:43,340
you are surrounded by people and
servants, but you don't have,

588
00:35:43,409 --> 00:35:47,593
you know, like a baby swing. A
lot of the things I relied on,

589
00:35:47,662 --> 00:35:52,120
she didn't have access to. But I
could say I thought, with almost

590
00:35:52,189 --> 00:35:56,168
certainty, that having five
children in less than a decade

591
00:35:56,236 --> 00:36:00,421
would be incredibly physically
difficult. And so when I tried

592
00:36:00,489 --> 00:36:04,674
to imagine Sano's experience, I
imagined it as something that

593
00:36:04,742 --> 00:36:08,789
was hard, and that maybe she
would have sometimes wanted to

594
00:36:08,858 --> 00:36:13,248
imagine herself into a different
kind of life, and that actually

595
00:36:13,317 --> 00:36:17,501
got me in trouble with other
historians. And I remember at my

596
00:36:17,570 --> 00:36:21,960
manuscript workshop, some of the
historians who came and read it

597
00:36:22,028 --> 00:36:26,419
said, "Well, you know, actually,
Sano, who was the mistress of a

598
00:36:26,487 --> 00:36:30,534
temple that was doing quite
well, whose children lived, who

599
00:36:30,603 --> 00:36:34,856
was married to the head of the
household, who you know kind of

600
00:36:34,925 --> 00:36:39,315
had a very secure existence for
that time and place, was leading

601
00:36:39,383 --> 00:36:43,773
what people would think of as an
ideal life, and you are reading

602
00:36:43,842 --> 00:36:47,546
your kind of 21st century
feminist preconceptions back

603
00:36:47,615 --> 00:36:52,005
into it when you think about the
fact that she might have wanted

604
00:36:52,074 --> 00:36:56,258
something else." And I countered
with, well, just because one

605
00:36:56,327 --> 00:37:00,580
lives what is kind of thought of
as the socially or culturally

606
00:37:00,648 --> 00:37:04,764
ideal life doesn't mean that
it's not difficult, and doesn't

607
00:37:04,832 --> 00:37:08,400
mean that people didn't imagine
other possibilities.

608
00:37:08,400 --> 00:37:11,554
I was thinking from my
experience leading a very, very

609
00:37:11,612 --> 00:37:14,942
privileged and in many ways
ideal life myself, and I also

610
00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:18,797
thought, you know, when we think
about manual laborers, like when

611
00:37:18,855 --> 00:37:22,477
we think about men and women who
went down into coal mines. We

612
00:37:22,535 --> 00:37:26,274
understand that that's grueling
physical labor, and we don't get

613
00:37:26,332 --> 00:37:29,837
ourselves all preoccupied with:
Is it the same experience to

614
00:37:29,896 --> 00:37:33,692
shovel coal with your bare hands
now as it would be back then? We

615
00:37:33,751 --> 00:37:37,372
just kind of assume, like, yes,
this is very hard on the body,

616
00:37:37,431 --> 00:37:41,052
and this is terrible. So why is
it that when we're considering

617
00:37:41,111 --> 00:37:44,032
reproduction, when we're
considering pregnancy and

618
00:37:44,090 --> 00:37:47,828
childbirth and nursing, that we
suddenly get caught up in, well,

619
00:37:47,887 --> 00:37:51,508
we can't make these assumptions?
And I just wanted to say that

620
00:37:51,567 --> 00:37:54,487
actually that is a very
difficult form of physical

621
00:37:54,546 --> 00:37:58,226
labor, and it is okay for me to
say so. And so in that sense, I

622
00:37:58,284 --> 00:38:01,322
think I had a different
perspective on some of those

623
00:38:01,380 --> 00:38:04,476
issues than some of my
interlocutors did, and I think

624
00:38:04,535 --> 00:38:06,930
it's it's still kind of an open question.

625
00:38:06,930 --> 00:38:09,456
Kate Carpenter: I like that a
lot. I want to ask you a

626
00:38:09,523 --> 00:38:13,845
question. I'm trying to think of
how to formulate it in the right

627
00:38:13,911 --> 00:38:17,901
way, but I guess it's that I
have a small child myself. He's

628
00:38:17,967 --> 00:38:22,023
three. I only have one. I find
his existence a very immersive

629
00:38:22,090 --> 00:38:26,213
experience. As you're talking,
and I'm thinking about just the

630
00:38:26,279 --> 00:38:30,468
incredible thinking and research
you're doing in this book, and

631
00:38:30,535 --> 00:38:34,790
all of the different facets that
you are engaging with. It seems

632
00:38:34,857 --> 00:38:38,514
to me that writing this book is
an incredibly immersive

633
00:38:38,580 --> 00:38:42,304
experience too, and the fact
that you are living both of

634
00:38:42,370 --> 00:38:46,560
those things at the same time,
seems honestly almost impossible

635
00:38:46,626 --> 00:38:50,416
to me. I'm I'm imagining you in
that play space, being in

636
00:38:50,483 --> 00:38:54,738
Tsuneno's world, but also being
aware of your small children and

637
00:38:54,805 --> 00:38:58,994
how that must have sort of torn
your brain in two in some ways.

638
00:38:59,060 --> 00:39:02,850
What was that like? I mean, to
be to be in these two very

639
00:39:02,917 --> 00:39:07,040
intense projects, for lack of a
better word, at the same time.

640
00:39:07,040 --> 00:39:10,543
Amy Stanley: I can't reread that
book without, obviously, as I'm

641
00:39:10,612 --> 00:39:14,322
talking, it's coming out,
putting myself right back in

642
00:39:14,391 --> 00:39:18,238
that very intense period of
life. I think, in some ways,

643
00:39:18,307 --> 00:39:22,635
writing this book was an act of
desperation. It was like I have

644
00:39:22,704 --> 00:39:26,963
these two small children who are
occupying all of my emotional

645
00:39:27,032 --> 00:39:30,948
and physical energy, but I
really struggled because I was

646
00:39:31,016 --> 00:39:35,139
like, I am supposed to be a
writer and I'm supposed to be an

647
00:39:35,207 --> 00:39:39,467
intellectual, and yet you know,
I'm just constantly cutting up

648
00:39:39,536 --> 00:39:43,726
strawberries. You know, I mean,
my my husband, I have to say,

649
00:39:43,795 --> 00:39:47,642
you know, he did a ton of
domestic labor himself, so I'm

650
00:39:47,711 --> 00:39:51,764
I'm not trying to be a martyr
here. But having two children

651
00:39:51,833 --> 00:39:56,093
definitely absorbs all of the
energy of two fully grown adults

652
00:39:56,161 --> 00:40:00,009
at all times, especially if
they're kind of rambunctious

653
00:40:00,077 --> 00:40:03,444
little boys who get into
everything, and I needed

654
00:40:03,512 --> 00:40:07,429
desperately to reconnect with
that side of myself. I also

655
00:40:07,497 --> 00:40:11,345
think it's not a coincidence
that I wrote an entire book

656
00:40:11,413 --> 00:40:15,467
about a woman who not only never
had children but ran away,

657
00:40:15,535 --> 00:40:19,726
completely rejected that life,
and so while I am nothing like

658
00:40:19,795 --> 00:40:24,192
Tsuneno at all as a person, and
my life experience is definitely

659
00:40:24,260 --> 00:40:28,589
not hers, I think that there was
a kind of a kind of experience

660
00:40:28,657 --> 00:40:32,780
of escaping from one life into
another one, even as my daily

661
00:40:32,848 --> 00:40:36,696
experience being a mother
absolutely shaped every aspect

662
00:40:36,764 --> 00:40:40,474
of how I wrote that book, and
the intensity of that is

663
00:40:40,543 --> 00:40:44,390
something that I will never
experience again. I will not

664
00:40:44,459 --> 00:40:48,237
experience it, I don't think,
ever with another writing

665
00:40:48,306 --> 00:40:52,703
project, with another historical
subject, or with a kind of time

666
00:40:52,772 --> 00:40:56,482
in life that seemed that
demanding. I think there is a

667
00:40:56,550 --> 00:41:00,329
sentence where I write about
Tsuneno. I mean, not about

668
00:41:00,398 --> 00:41:04,726
Tsuneno, about her sister-in-law
Sano, who's the mother in that

669
00:41:04,795 --> 00:41:08,985
book. That she was really the
vital center of everything, and

670
00:41:09,054 --> 00:41:13,245
I think that's how you feel when
you're the mother of a small

671
00:41:13,314 --> 00:41:17,436
child. That if your existence
stopped, everything would fall

672
00:41:17,504 --> 00:41:21,489
apart. You know, that you are,
in some sense, holding your

673
00:41:21,558 --> 00:41:25,886
small world together with your
own energy, and as your children

674
00:41:25,955 --> 00:41:29,802
grow up, that that feeling
dissipates. And while it's an

675
00:41:29,871 --> 00:41:33,924
incredible, crushing amount of
responsibility, and it is so

676
00:41:33,993 --> 00:41:38,046
hard, and I don't think I would
want to go back and live it

677
00:41:38,115 --> 00:41:42,031
again because it was intensely
painful at times, there is

678
00:41:42,100 --> 00:41:46,153
something really exhilarating
and irreplaceable about that.

679
00:41:46,222 --> 00:41:50,481
And I think being the center of
your kind of your own domestic

680
00:41:50,550 --> 00:41:54,741
world, and being the author of a
world that goes on the page,

681
00:41:54,810 --> 00:41:59,000
there is something analogous
about those two experiences that

682
00:41:59,069 --> 00:42:03,054
I think work together in some
way. I don't think I'm being

683
00:42:03,123 --> 00:42:07,520
intellectually clear, but
hopefully I'm being emotionally clear.

684
00:42:07,520 --> 00:42:10,281
Kate Carpenter: No, you are
also. I'm tearing up. So you're

685
00:42:10,345 --> 00:42:12,400
clearly being emotionally clear.

686
00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:15,102
Amy Stanley: I believe me. I
cried a lot while I was writing

687
00:42:15,160 --> 00:42:18,553
this book. There were a lot of
tears that went into it. Not

688
00:42:18,610 --> 00:42:21,831
necessarily, some tears of
frustration, or just tears of

689
00:42:21,888 --> 00:42:25,454
being tired and overwhelmed, but
places where I think I had to

690
00:42:25,511 --> 00:42:28,502
tap into my own kind of
emotional experiences to get

691
00:42:28,559 --> 00:42:30,400
across what I was trying to say.

692
00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:33,283
Kate Carpenter: I also want to
talk a little bit about how you

693
00:42:33,346 --> 00:42:37,232
show the reader. I love at the
end of this book you talk about

694
00:42:37,295 --> 00:42:41,306
how this is a place that doesn't
exist anymore, and you are kind

695
00:42:41,369 --> 00:42:45,130
of bringing it back. You know
that it's, as I understand it,

696
00:42:45,193 --> 00:42:48,828
an oversimplification to say
that Edo became Tokyo, right?

697
00:42:48,891 --> 00:42:52,903
Because in many ways, Edo ceased
to exist for various historical

698
00:42:52,965 --> 00:42:56,977
reasons. But you really bring it
to life. I mean, it became very

699
00:42:57,040 --> 00:43:00,613
real to me reading this book,
and yet, as you talk about,

700
00:43:00,675 --> 00:43:04,624
you're not able to go visit much
of it as a modern scholar. You

701
00:43:04,687 --> 00:43:08,573
know, you can, there are a few
little glimpses here and there,

702
00:43:08,636 --> 00:43:12,334
but it's it's kind of mostly
physically erased. How did you

703
00:43:12,397 --> 00:43:16,095
think about recreating the
physicality of the city when you

704
00:43:16,158 --> 00:43:17,600
were writing this book?

705
00:43:17,600 --> 00:43:20,813
Amy Stanley: I think this is a
place where my engagement with

706
00:43:20,880 --> 00:43:24,696
Japanese scholars in Japanese
academia was really, really

707
00:43:24,763 --> 00:43:28,847
important. It is very different
to research and write about a

708
00:43:28,914 --> 00:43:32,730
place where you live versus
researching and writing about

709
00:43:32,797 --> 00:43:36,947
what is a foreign country. So
I'm sitting here in Illinois and

710
00:43:37,014 --> 00:43:40,897
I'm writing about Japan, but
scholars who work in Japan in

711
00:43:40,964 --> 00:43:45,249
Japanese academia write about a
place that they experience every

712
00:43:45,316 --> 00:43:49,266
day, and even if the past is
always a foreign country, that

713
00:43:49,333 --> 00:43:53,349
is a very different experience
than the one that I'm having.

714
00:43:53,416 --> 00:43:57,634
And so, one of the things that
Japanese academics often do as a

715
00:43:57,701 --> 00:44:01,182
kind of common historical
practice is they will lead

716
00:44:01,249 --> 00:44:05,601
walking tours of the places that
they research, and in fact, when

717
00:44:05,668 --> 00:44:09,885
I go back to Japan this summer,
there is a professor at Niigata

718
00:44:09,952 --> 00:44:13,902
University who was a translation
supervisor on the Japanese

719
00:44:13,969 --> 00:44:17,785
edition of the book, who is
going to be leading a walking

720
00:44:17,852 --> 00:44:22,204
tour of the places where Tsuneno
lived in Niigata. This is just a

721
00:44:22,271 --> 00:44:26,354
kind of very common thing to do,
and so I had been many times

722
00:44:26,421 --> 00:44:30,237
with Japanese historians out
into the field in which they

723
00:44:30,304 --> 00:44:34,254
will kind of create a map and an
itinerary and go around to

724
00:44:34,321 --> 00:44:38,606
different neighborhoods and talk
about kind of what these places

725
00:44:38,673 --> 00:44:42,824
were like historically and what
you still can see and what you

726
00:44:42,890 --> 00:44:46,907
can't see. Also, part of the
practice of being in a Japanese

727
00:44:46,974 --> 00:44:50,857
seminar, which I also did in
graduate school, is that when

728
00:44:50,924 --> 00:44:54,740
you have like basically a
Japanese seminar, or at least a

729
00:44:54,807 --> 00:44:59,159
style of seminar I was at, every
meeting a student is responsible

730
00:44:59,226 --> 00:45:03,577
for introducing a primary source
or part of a primary source, and

731
00:45:03,644 --> 00:45:07,795
writing what is basically a long
exegesis about it. And one of

732
00:45:07,862 --> 00:45:11,678
the parts of understanding a
primary source is to look up

733
00:45:11,745 --> 00:45:16,096
every location that is mentioned
in that source, many of which no

734
00:45:16,163 --> 00:45:20,113
longer exist because they've
merged and become other places

735
00:45:20,180 --> 00:45:24,130
in a dictionary of historical
places, and explain where was

736
00:45:24,197 --> 00:45:28,348
this place? Is this a village?
How many people live there? How

737
00:45:28,415 --> 00:45:32,498
many kilometers is it away from
the place that you're talking

738
00:45:32,565 --> 00:45:36,783
about? With every single place
name that is in that source, and

739
00:45:36,850 --> 00:45:41,001
so there's a level of kind of
grounding references in concrete

740
00:45:41,068 --> 00:45:45,352
physical places that is central
to Japanese historical practice,

741
00:45:45,419 --> 00:45:49,637
and so I think it is from that
experience, and because in order

742
00:45:49,704 --> 00:45:53,788
to do this, Japanese scholars
have compiled amazing reference

743
00:45:53,855 --> 00:45:57,604
materials. Like you can buy any
number of maps that will

744
00:45:57,671 --> 00:46:01,955
superimpose the contemporary map
of Tokyo, or even the train and

745
00:46:02,022 --> 00:46:06,106
subway map, onto the old map of
Edo, so that you know exactly

746
00:46:06,173 --> 00:46:10,391
where you are at all times. And
I think it's from that academic

747
00:46:10,458 --> 00:46:13,805
culture that I was able to
actually engage in this

748
00:46:13,872 --> 00:46:15,680
imaginative reconstruction.

749
00:46:15,690 --> 00:46:19,050
Kate Carpenter: Wow, I love
that. That's so cool. I want to

750
00:46:19,080 --> 00:46:22,190
shift gears a little bit because
Stranger in the Shogun City was

751
00:46:22,370 --> 00:46:25,880
so well received, and it got a
lot of really great honors,

752
00:46:25,910 --> 00:46:29,900
which were very well deserved.
But I'm curious what that

753
00:46:29,960 --> 00:46:35,900
experience was like, and has it
affected your writing life going

754
00:46:35,990 --> 00:46:36,620
forward from that?

755
00:46:37,360 --> 00:46:40,313
Amy Stanley: So it was a very
weird experience. In part, I

756
00:46:40,378 --> 00:46:44,184
mean, I think it's probably
always a weird experience when

757
00:46:44,250 --> 00:46:48,187
your book wins a big literary
award because those things are

758
00:46:48,253 --> 00:46:52,256
so rare. But I think it was a
particularly strange experience

759
00:46:52,322 --> 00:46:56,456
because all of this happened in
2020 and 2021, and so I was not

760
00:46:56,522 --> 00:47:00,787
really leaving the house, and no
one was leaving the house that I

761
00:47:00,853 --> 00:47:04,725
knew. And also, all of these
things were happening on Zoom,

762
00:47:04,790 --> 00:47:08,268
so there were no actual
in-person award ceremonies of

763
00:47:08,334 --> 00:47:12,337
any kind. And I remember when I
won one of them, the National

764
00:47:12,403 --> 00:47:16,603
Book Critics Circle Award. That
was held entirely on Zoom, and I

765
00:47:16,668 --> 00:47:20,671
zoomed in from my dining room.
And what was nice about it was

766
00:47:20,737 --> 00:47:24,937
like my family was there, my dog
was there, hanging out watching

767
00:47:25,002 --> 00:47:29,005
the Zoom, and then then I won,
and then I said thank you, and

768
00:47:29,071 --> 00:47:32,877
then I closed my laptop and I
went and did laundry. It was

769
00:47:32,943 --> 00:47:36,487
just this kind of weird
collision of everyday life and

770
00:47:36,552 --> 00:47:40,227
these like strange public
occurrences I think many of us

771
00:47:40,293 --> 00:47:44,033
experienced during the pandemic,
but just in this kind of

772
00:47:44,099 --> 00:47:47,774
heightened way. So, in a way,
that meant that none of it

773
00:47:47,840 --> 00:47:52,039
seemed like it really happened,
and so it was like the book came

774
00:47:52,105 --> 00:47:56,305
out in this strange world. These
awards, I won these awards, but

775
00:47:56,371 --> 00:48:00,439
it all seemed like it happened
in a kind of alternate timeline

776
00:48:00,505 --> 00:48:04,770
or different time and space, and
in that sense, so in that sense,

777
00:48:04,836 --> 00:48:08,970
it wasn't like I was like, oh, I
am like a really big deal now.

778
00:48:09,036 --> 00:48:12,842
But I do think it definitely
gave me visibility, and I was

779
00:48:12,908 --> 00:48:15,927
really happy that it gave
Japanese history and

780
00:48:15,992 --> 00:48:20,192
particularly the history of the
Edo period visibility in kind of

781
00:48:20,258 --> 00:48:24,130
the American literary scene that
it hadn't had, at least in

782
00:48:24,195 --> 00:48:28,067
nonfiction, and so that to me
was really, really gratifying

783
00:48:28,133 --> 00:48:32,136
because everyone had always told
me there is no place for the

784
00:48:32,201 --> 00:48:36,007
history of Japan in trade
publishing if it doesn't feature

785
00:48:36,073 --> 00:48:40,273
a white man or World War II, and
the fact that I was able to win

786
00:48:40,339 --> 00:48:44,342
those awards with a protagonist
that nobody, you know, nobody

787
00:48:44,407 --> 00:48:48,476
can pronounce her name in a city
that you know nobody has ever

788
00:48:48,542 --> 00:48:52,282
heard of because they only know
Tokyo was really actually

789
00:48:52,348 --> 00:48:56,416
surprising, but surprising in a
good way. I do think that it's

790
00:48:56,482 --> 00:49:00,157
true though that when you win,
when I won these literary

791
00:49:00,223 --> 00:49:04,226
awards, it's like confirmation
that like oh you're actually a

792
00:49:04,291 --> 00:49:08,360
good writer, and while that's
like so validating, it is like a

793
00:49:08,426 --> 00:49:12,101
lot of pressure because then
it's hard to return to your

794
00:49:12,166 --> 00:49:16,366
writing and think like when you
write that horrible first draft,

795
00:49:16,432 --> 00:49:19,975
you think oh no like I'm
supposed to be a good writer,

796
00:49:20,041 --> 00:49:24,175
and look at this-it's terrible.
And so I think that I just have

797
00:49:24,241 --> 00:49:27,982
to get out of the mindset of
thinking that that will ever

798
00:49:28,047 --> 00:49:31,985
happen again. I just have to
appreciate that as a thing that

799
00:49:32,050 --> 00:49:35,725
happened, which is a little
easier because of that weird

800
00:49:35,791 --> 00:49:37,760
2020 moment, and just move on.

801
00:49:37,760 --> 00:49:39,964
Kate Carpenter: I guess that
makes sense. You mentioned

802
00:49:40,020 --> 00:49:43,129
something that I want to bring
up too, which is that in

803
00:49:43,185 --> 00:49:46,746
preparation for this interview,
I was reading back through your

804
00:49:46,803 --> 00:49:50,307
old blog posts, which I love, by
the way, it made me wish that

805
00:49:50,364 --> 00:49:53,585
you had a like a newsletter that
you write. You you wrote

806
00:49:53,642 --> 00:49:57,259
something back then about trade
books. It was about other things

807
00:49:57,316 --> 00:50:00,990
too, but I'm going to quote this
line that I loved from it, where

808
00:50:01,046 --> 00:50:04,381
you said, "There is no good
reason that trade books have to

809
00:50:04,437 --> 00:50:07,659
feature famous men, familiar
places, and dramatic, simple

810
00:50:07,715 --> 00:50:10,711
stories." I love this,
obviously, but it also made me

811
00:50:10,768 --> 00:50:14,159
wonder if you still feel that's
true now. From from a market

812
00:50:14,215 --> 00:50:17,663
perspective, obviously, from a
storytelling perspective, it's

813
00:50:17,720 --> 00:50:21,224
true. But do you think there's
still room in trade publishing,

814
00:50:21,280 --> 00:50:24,389
in this moment, are more
complicated stories about more

815
00:50:24,446 --> 00:50:25,520
complicated people?

816
00:50:25,520 --> 00:50:28,666
Amy Stanley: You know what? I
I'm not sure because I don't

817
00:50:28,736 --> 00:50:32,932
know the market, right? So I
don't necessarily keep up with,

818
00:50:33,002 --> 00:50:37,267
this is what's selling, this is
what's not selling. I do know

819
00:50:37,337 --> 00:50:41,183
that people, and this especially
includes students, are

820
00:50:41,253 --> 00:50:45,169
interested in all kinds of
things, and often what we say

821
00:50:45,239 --> 00:50:49,574
about, you know, oh, well, like
this is what drives enrollment

822
00:50:49,644 --> 00:50:53,630
is not really what drives
enrollment. I mean our, some of

823
00:50:53,700 --> 00:50:58,175
our most popular classes in our
department are about the Mongols

824
00:50:58,245 --> 00:51:02,790
and Indo Persian literature, and
you would think, you know, these

825
00:51:02,860 --> 00:51:07,125
are obscure subjects, but when
they're taught in a compelling

826
00:51:07,195 --> 00:51:10,832
way by great professors,
students will flock to them

827
00:51:10,901 --> 00:51:15,307
because often people don't want
to read the same thing or think

828
00:51:15,377 --> 00:51:19,572
about the same thing over and
over again. They want to think

829
00:51:19,642 --> 00:51:23,908
about something different, and I
think that we have more of a

830
00:51:23,978 --> 00:51:28,243
burden when we're explaining
things that people don't already

831
00:51:28,313 --> 00:51:32,718
think they know about to present
it in a kind of compelling and

832
00:51:32,788 --> 00:51:36,704
lively way in order to convince
people it's worth paying

833
00:51:36,774 --> 00:51:40,690
attention to. But I don't think
that human curiosity has

834
00:51:40,760 --> 00:51:45,095
fundamentally changed, and in
some ways, I think it is easier,

835
00:51:45,165 --> 00:51:49,431
at least it was when I first
sold this book on the market, to

836
00:51:49,501 --> 00:51:53,766
say this is a story you don't
already know, and I can tell it

837
00:51:53,836 --> 00:51:57,612
to you, and I just have to
believe that that is always

838
00:51:57,682 --> 00:52:01,877
going to be compelling. Now, of
course, we all know that the

839
00:52:01,947 --> 00:52:06,143
market right now is kind of a
mess, and that readerships are

840
00:52:06,213 --> 00:52:10,618
contracting and shifting. But I
think doing the same thing over

841
00:52:10,688 --> 00:52:14,184
and over does not always
guarantee success. And so

842
00:52:14,254 --> 00:52:18,310
sometimes doing something
completely unexpected is the way

843
00:52:18,380 --> 00:52:18,800
to go.

844
00:52:18,800 --> 00:52:21,414
Kate Carpenter: Was it a hard
book to sell because it was, you

845
00:52:21,471 --> 00:52:23,120
know, not a familiar subject?

846
00:52:23,120 --> 00:52:26,272
Amy Stanley: Surprisingly, no.
I, I, I did not have an agent,

847
00:52:26,338 --> 00:52:30,016
of course, we know, starting
out. So I just kind of, you

848
00:52:30,082 --> 00:52:34,220
know, emailed a pitch. My agent
now was working as an assistant

849
00:52:34,286 --> 00:52:38,292
at the agency and kind of picked
it out of the slush pile and

850
00:52:38,358 --> 00:52:42,102
read it and thought, you know,
this is actually good, and

851
00:52:42,168 --> 00:52:46,437
partly because there was nothing
else like it, there was really a

852
00:52:46,503 --> 00:52:50,509
lot of interest, and the pitch
was, you know, how many people

853
00:52:50,575 --> 00:52:54,385
in the English speaking world
are there who can read these

854
00:52:54,450 --> 00:52:58,457
letters, and of course I know
the scholars who can read these

855
00:52:58,523 --> 00:53:02,661
letters. But in general terms,
considering the population, it's

856
00:53:02,726 --> 00:53:06,733
a, it's a very small number, and
I think that publishers were

857
00:53:06,799 --> 00:53:10,346
really interested in in
something that was never going

858
00:53:10,411 --> 00:53:14,418
to come around again. So you
know if it's, like, I don't want

859
00:53:14,484 --> 00:53:18,030
to kind of pick on anyone
specific, but like if it's a

860
00:53:18,096 --> 00:53:21,971
biography of like, you know,
Abraham Lincoln, there will be

861
00:53:22,037 --> 00:53:26,044
another one pitched next year
and the year after that and the

862
00:53:26,109 --> 00:53:30,379
year after that, and they'll all
be interesting. They'll all have

863
00:53:30,445 --> 00:53:34,648
different angles, but you're not
losing your only chance to have

864
00:53:34,714 --> 00:53:38,852
a biography of Abraham Lincoln,
whereas you might be losing the

865
00:53:38,918 --> 00:53:43,056
only chance that comes around in
the next decade or two decades

866
00:53:43,121 --> 00:53:47,062
to you know have a book about a
woman in the Edo period, and

867
00:53:47,128 --> 00:53:51,266
that kind of creates a kind of
excitement, or did an excitement

868
00:53:51,332 --> 00:53:53,040
and a feeling of scarcity.

869
00:53:53,200 --> 00:53:55,090
Kate Carpenter: Oh, that's cool!
I often, when I do these

870
00:53:55,180 --> 00:53:57,610
interviews, am speaking to
someone right after the book has

871
00:53:57,700 --> 00:54:00,360
come out, so they usually have
another book project that

872
00:54:00,450 --> 00:54:03,360
they're working on, but it's
very early. We are talking

873
00:54:03,930 --> 00:54:07,170
several years after *Stranger in
the Shogun City* comes out, and

874
00:54:07,260 --> 00:54:09,780
I know you've been working on
another book for several years.

875
00:54:10,560 --> 00:54:11,880
How do you approach that
subject?

876
00:54:12,560 --> 00:54:15,756
Amy Stanley: So you've actually
caught me at a time when I was

877
00:54:15,822 --> 00:54:19,606
working on another book for
several years and gotten a big

878
00:54:19,671 --> 00:54:23,129
grant for it, and then
ultimately decided that it was

879
00:54:23,194 --> 00:54:26,717
better off as a series of
articles. I think one of the

880
00:54:26,782 --> 00:54:30,697
things that motivated me was I
needed to do something really

881
00:54:30,762 --> 00:54:35,003
different from the Tsuneno book.
I could not write that book over

882
00:54:35,068 --> 00:54:38,591
again, and I could not do
another micro history, and I

883
00:54:38,656 --> 00:54:42,310
could not return at that point
to the early 19th century

884
00:54:42,375 --> 00:54:46,225
because I'd really said what I
wanted to say, and one of my

885
00:54:46,290 --> 00:54:50,074
real beliefs about books,
whether it's writing like moving

886
00:54:50,139 --> 00:54:53,988
from the dissertation book to
the second book or the second

887
00:54:54,054 --> 00:54:58,033
book to now the third book, is
that you cannot write the same

888
00:54:58,099 --> 00:55:02,209
book over again, and if you try,
you will only be disappointed.

889
00:55:02,274 --> 00:55:06,189
So you have to really radically
change modes, and, and in my

890
00:55:06,254 --> 00:55:10,299
case, I decided, okay, I'm going
to change historical periods,

891
00:55:10,364 --> 00:55:14,344
and I'm going to write about the
20th century, which I'd been

892
00:55:14,409 --> 00:55:18,454
involved in some other research
about, and I had become really

893
00:55:18,519 --> 00:55:22,303
interested in Burma and the
experiences of Japanese women,

894
00:55:22,369 --> 00:55:26,609
but also Burmese women and women
who were kind of affiliated with

895
00:55:26,675 --> 00:55:30,459
the British Empire, who all
ended up in Burma during World

896
00:55:30,524 --> 00:55:34,308
War II, and I even started
learning Burmese, and I studied

897
00:55:34,373 --> 00:55:38,288
Burmese for about two years and
learned to read a bit. And I

898
00:55:38,353 --> 00:55:42,529
thought, okay, you know, this is
where my next project is going,

899
00:55:42,594 --> 00:55:46,247
and I wrote two essays about
this, and I'm involved in a

900
00:55:46,313 --> 00:55:50,162
translation project from a
Japanese book related to it, but

901
00:55:50,227 --> 00:55:53,881
ultimately I thought I can't
actually do this project. I

902
00:55:53,946 --> 00:55:57,534
don't have enough of an
immersive sense of that period,

903
00:55:57,600 --> 00:56:01,384
in part because right now I
can't travel to Myanmar, and I

904
00:56:01,449 --> 00:56:05,233
can't do the linguistic training
on the level that I would

905
00:56:05,298 --> 00:56:09,408
really, really need to do it to
write the kind of book that I'm

906
00:56:09,474 --> 00:56:13,519
good at, and I also thought, you
know, I really did train as a

907
00:56:13,584 --> 00:56:17,825
historian of the Edo period, and
there aren't really that many of

908
00:56:17,890 --> 00:56:21,935
us, and I started to feel like I
wanted to return to the world

909
00:56:22,000 --> 00:56:26,176
that I knew best. So I made this
foray into the history of World

910
00:56:26,241 --> 00:56:30,155
War II and the history of the
kind of the Japanese in Burma,

911
00:56:30,221 --> 00:56:34,396
and you can read some of my work
about that. I just had an essay

912
00:56:34,461 --> 00:56:38,180
about it published in the
American Historical Review, but

913
00:56:38,245 --> 00:56:41,964
I ultimately decided, you know
what, I have to leave that

914
00:56:42,030 --> 00:56:45,357
project there, and I am
embarking on a new project,

915
00:56:45,422 --> 00:56:49,467
which is the real third book,
which is a big narrative history

916
00:56:49,532 --> 00:56:53,186
of Japan during the early modern
period, which I am very

917
00:56:53,251 --> 00:56:56,709
individualistically defining as
between 1582 with the

918
00:56:56,774 --> 00:57:00,950
assassination of the warlord Oda
Nobunaga to 1868 with the Meiji

919
00:57:01,015 --> 00:57:04,734
Restoration, and that to me is
enough of a difference and

920
00:57:04,799 --> 00:57:08,844
enough of a challenge because
rather than being a very intense

921
00:57:08,909 --> 00:57:12,628
microhistory, it's like a big
sweeping epic, and I get to

922
00:57:12,693 --> 00:57:16,804
write about warfare and castles
and samurai, and also just kind

923
00:57:16,869 --> 00:57:20,392
of consider places and
perspectives that I didn't have

924
00:57:20,457 --> 00:57:24,633
in Tsuneno's story. So right now
I am working on the proposal of

925
00:57:24,698 --> 00:57:28,808
that, and I've written about the
first 70 pages or so, and that

926
00:57:28,873 --> 00:57:32,853
is the project. But I think my
lesson from that, which I kind

927
00:57:32,918 --> 00:57:36,768
of knew intellectually but
hadn't actually done, is that it

928
00:57:36,833 --> 00:57:40,487
is okay to change course, and
it's okay to kind of leave

929
00:57:40,552 --> 00:57:44,532
something where it is and think,
I'm going to come back to it

930
00:57:44,597 --> 00:57:48,250
later, or I'm not going to come
back to it later, and do

931
00:57:48,316 --> 00:57:51,708
something else because
otherwise, I think the danger

932
00:57:51,774 --> 00:57:56,080
was kind of getting stuck and
like spinning my wheels for a while.

933
00:57:56,080 --> 00:57:59,104
Kate Carpenter: Wow, I love
hearing about that, and that

934
00:57:59,179 --> 00:58:02,960
that feels like pretty good
advice to end on. So--

935
00:58:02,960 --> 00:58:04,757
Amy Stanley: Oh, but can I also
can I tell you one one other

936
00:58:04,795 --> 00:58:07,090
thing? I was really excited
about, when you when you put the

937
00:58:07,128 --> 00:58:09,346
question of what's the best
piece of writing advice you've

938
00:58:09,384 --> 00:58:09,920
ever received.

939
00:58:09,930 --> 00:58:10,920
Kate Carpenter: Oh yeah, please
tell me

940
00:58:11,190 --> 00:58:13,827
Amy Stanley: Because I always
love to credit this piece of

941
00:58:13,886 --> 00:58:17,227
writing advice, which I think is
so helpful. So my senior

942
00:58:17,285 --> 00:58:21,036
colleague at Northwestern, Laura
Hein, who's also a professor of

943
00:58:21,095 --> 00:58:24,377
Japanese history, once said to
me, an article is only an

944
00:58:24,436 --> 00:58:27,836
expression of what you think
about a topic at the time you

945
00:58:27,894 --> 00:58:31,059
wrote it. That was like
absolutely a revelation for me

946
00:58:31,118 --> 00:58:34,342
because I was like, oh, I only
have to treat this as an

947
00:58:34,400 --> 00:58:37,917
expression of what I think right
now, and that means that it

948
00:58:37,976 --> 00:58:41,317
doesn't have to be absolutely
perfect. It doesn't have to

949
00:58:41,375 --> 00:58:44,716
stand for all time, and it
liberates me to change my mind

950
00:58:44,775 --> 00:58:48,233
in the future. And I think
that's where a lot of people get

951
00:58:48,291 --> 00:58:51,574
stuck, is like, they have to
have the perfect take on an

952
00:58:51,632 --> 00:58:55,384
issue, and they're going to have
to stand by it forever. And the

953
00:58:55,442 --> 00:58:58,725
idea of like, an article is a
moment in time, and it's a

954
00:58:58,783 --> 00:59:02,359
record of what you thought, and
then you can kind of go on to

955
00:59:02,417 --> 00:59:05,875
new things, or change your mind,
or revisit it later, is so

956
00:59:05,934 --> 00:59:09,392
liberating, and it is like, it
enables me to write in a way

957
00:59:09,451 --> 00:59:13,026
that I think I would not have
written had I not received that

958
00:59:13,085 --> 00:59:15,840
advice. So I wanted to
definitely get that out.

959
00:59:15,840 --> 00:59:18,038
Kate Carpenter: Thank you, thank
you for sharing it. That does

960
00:59:18,086 --> 00:59:20,905
sound like extremely freeing
advice. Dr. Amy Stanley, thank

961
00:59:20,953 --> 00:59:23,916
you so much for joining me. What
a pleasure to hear about your

962
00:59:23,963 --> 00:59:26,640
writing process and talk with
you for Drafting the Past.

963
00:59:26,640 --> 00:59:28,000
Amy Stanley: Thank you so much.

964
00:59:28,000 --> 00:59:30,206
Kate Carpenter: Thanks for
joining us for this episode of

965
00:59:30,260 --> 00:59:33,596
the Drafting the Past podcast.
Find links to Dr. Amy Stanley's

966
00:59:33,650 --> 00:59:37,040
Stranger in the Shogun City and
everything else we talked about

967
00:59:37,094 --> 00:59:39,839
in the show notes. And stay
tuned for some exciting

968
00:59:39,892 --> 00:59:43,014
announcements coming soon as we
get ready to open the next

969
00:59:43,068 --> 00:59:46,296
chapter of Drafting the Past.
Until next time, remember that

970
00:59:46,350 --> 00:59:48,880
friends don't let friends write
boring history.