The Genpei War and the Tale of the Heike, Japan's Greatest War Story

This short lecture discusses what is widely considered to be the greatest war story in Japanese history--The Tale of the Heike--and history of the samurai battles from the 10th and 11th centuries that inspired it.

Sources used:
McCullough, Helen Craig. The Tale of the Heike. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988.
Oyler, Elizabeth. Swords, Oaths, and Prophetic Visions: Authoring Warrior Rule in Medieval Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2006.
Tyler, Royall. The Tale of the Heike. New York: Viking, 2012.
Varley, H. Paul. Warriors of Japan: As Portrayed in the War Tales. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1994.
Performance of the opening lines of the Tale of the Heike from “Yoko Hiraoka performing 'Gion Shoja' on Chikuzen Biwa,”    • Yoko Hiraoka performing 'Gion Shoja' ...  . Accessed 3 May 2016.

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The Ohio State University's East Asian Studies Center (EASC) and Columbus State Community College (CSCC) collaborated to develop modules on Japanese history to be incorporated into the World History curriculum at CSCC. These modules are made available online for classroom use worldwide.

Project Contributors:
OSU: Ryan Schultz, Etsuyo Yuasa, Amy Carey
CSCC: Jennifer Nardone, Dona Reaser

This project is supported by a U.S. Department of Education Title VI grant for EASC.