Dr Shiori Hiraki

Shiori Hiraki is an art historian researching art in social life in early modern Japan, namely the Edo period (1603–1868). She is now revising her PhD thesis, Onari: Art, Ritual and Power in Early Modern Japan into a book manuscript. In her thesis, she discussed the role of art in constructing and projecting the regime’s image of the shogun as the top of the military government for bolstering the authority and making a mutual, honour-tied bond between the shogun and the regional rulers (daimyo) in a ritual called onari, the shogun’s visit to their residences in the city of Edo. By using primary sources never previously introduced in English, she has analysed from architectural compounds and gardens to displayed objects, and from banquets and entertainments, to investigate how the authority of the shogun was expressed and confirmed at the visit.