Joshua Schlachet

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Scholarly Contributions

Journals/Publications

• Schlachet, J. (2023).

  Kitchens of Dejima: Japanese Cookery and Dutch Sovereignty in Nineteenth-Century Miniatures

  . Verge: Studies in Global Asias. doi:10.1353/vrg.2023.a903024
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  Abstract: Through an object-oriented history of Japanese foodways on the move, this article explores how a miniature kitchen diorama collected by Jan Cock Blomhoff in Nagasaki in the 1820s situated Japan within the Netherlands’ narrative of post-Napoleonic national sovereignty. Blomhoff’s kitchen blended a display of Japanese culinary craftsmanship—its tools, vessels, and utensils procured from Japanese artisans—with classical Dutch dollhouse design that evoked Golden Age domestic prosperity, a microcosm of a properly functioning state. Everyday life objects like Blomhoff’s kitchen became powerful symbols for continuity throughout the Netherlands’ era of national dissolution. Despite limited mobility outside Japan during the early modern period, representation of cooking and domestic life through miniaturized kitchen accouterments produced an insistent presence of Japanese foodways in the European imagination.
• Schlachet, J. (2021). On Bread and National Ruin: Cerealism and the Chemistry of Culinary 'Tradition' in Meiji Japan. Asian Medicine.
• Schlachet, J. (2022). On Bread and National Ruin: Cerealism and the Chemistry of Culinary Tradition in Meiji Japan. Asian Medicine, 17(2), 296-324. doi:10.1163/15734218-12341517
• Schlachet, J. (2021).

  Can You Question Science in a Pandemic? Provocations on the History of Health (and Food) in Japan After COVID

  . New Voices in Japanese Studies. doi:10.21159/nvjs.13.03
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  This article, through a series of provocations and anecdotes from my research into dietary health in early modern Japan (1600-1868), makes the case for transhistorical thinking as a productive analytical mode, allowing the past to speak to present concerns in creative and unexpected ways. As this volume seeks a fresh approach to Japanese Studies post-pandemic, addressing this tension between past and present, I argue, offers a productive way to turn the challenges of COVID-19 into opportunities for greater impact and interconnection. Now, however, is a bad time to question science. Vaccine hesitancy, resistance to mask mandates, and the overall politicization of commonsense health guidelines among a substantial plurality of the population indicate a sustained mistrust of health science expertise precisely when belief and compliance would do the most medical and social good. Doing the history of health in Japan through a transhistorical lens, I argue, exposes how a set of social divisions and challenges that may appear through a presentist lens to be as novel as the virus itself, and tied inextricably to the demands and paradoxes of modern state-based public health regimes, are in fact variants of issues that have been faced in dramatically different historical circumstances. This article follows these themes through three broad provocations that resonate between health’s past and present, drawn from the nineteenth-century history of diet and nutrition in Japan: skepticism of doctors and a critique of medical expertise; prioritising preventative versus retroactive care; and balancing health with opening the economy.

Presentations

• Schlachet, J. (2023, August). Radish or Perish: Eating and Writing Against Medicine in Early Modern Japan. 16th International Conference on the History of Science in East Asia (ICHSEA). Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany: International Society for the History of East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine.
• Schlachet, J. (2023, July). Knowing What's Good for You: Moralism, Reprimand, and the Trouble with Eating Right in Early Modern Japan. Creating Ethical Bodies Workshop. Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium: Ghent University.
• Schlachet, J. (2024, April). In Search of the Stomach: Diet and Interiority in Early Modern Japanese Fiction. Invited Talk. Arizona State University: ASU Asia Center & SILC.
• Schlachet, J. (2022, Spring). Daikon as Drug: Eating Against Medicine in Early Modern Japanese Dietetics. Global Lives of Medicines: Materials, Markets, and Healing Practices Across Asia Workshop. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.
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  Presented the above paper at a workshop on East Asian medical materials, which I am currently turning into a book chapter for publication.
• Schlachet, J. (2022, Spring). Kitchens of Dejima: Japanese Cookery and Dutch Sovereignty in Nineteenth-Century Miniatures. Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference. Honolulu, Hawaii: Association for Asian Studies.
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  Presented the above paper and organized a two-part panel of international, interdisciplinary speakers for the Association for Asian Studies Conference
• Schlachet, J. (2022, Summer). Better Pay the Cookbook than the Doctor: Decentering Expertise in Early Modern Japanese Dietary Guides. Healing the People: Popularizing and Printing Medicine in Edo Japan Workshop. Leiden University, Netherlands: Leiden University.
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  Presented the above paper at an international workshop on the history of medicine and media in early modern Japan.
• Schlachet, J. (2021, February). Can You Question Science Without Being an Anti-Vaxxer? Doing the History of Health in Japan After COVID. Beyond Japanese Studies Symposium. University of New England, Australia (Online via Zoom): The Japan Foundation, Sydney.
• Schlachet, J. (2021, Summer). Tales of the Stomach: Dietary Health and Didactic Play in Tokugawa Popular Literature. Penn State Global Asias Summer Institute. Penn State University (Online via Zoom): Penn State Global Asias Initiative.
• Schlachet, J. (2020, January). Nourished Body, National Body: Dietary Restoration or Hygienic Revolution in Meiji Japan?. History Department Brown Bag Series. University of Arizona: Department of History.
• Schlachet, J. (2019, March). An Encouragement of Nourishing: Translating Wellbeing in Nineteenth-Century Japanese Dietetics. Asian Studies Development Program 25th Annual Conference: Wellbeing in Asian Traditions of Thought and Practice. Nashville, TN: Asian Studies Development Program (East-West Center).
• Schlachet, J. (2019, May). On Bread and National Ruin: Cerealism and the Chemistry of Culinary 'Tradition' in Japan. Vernacular Medicine in Japan Workshop. University of Chicago: University of Chicago, Center for East Asian Studies.
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  Paper presentation and workshop participation
• Schlachet, J. (2019, November). A White-Crested Wave of Wasted Rice: Famine Prevention and the Logistics of Frugality in Edo Japan. 'Interdisciplinary Edo: New Perspectives on Early Modern Japan' Workshop and Symposium. University of Arizona: University of Arizona, College of Humanities.
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  Presented paper and participated in workshop and symposium
• Schlachet, J. (2019, October). An Encouragement of Nourishing: Translating Nutrition in Nineteenth-Century Japan. Have You Eaten Yet: The History and Culture of Food in East Asia. University of San Francisco: University of San Francisco, Center for Asia Pacific Studies.
  More info

  Presented paper and participated in conference program

Others

• Schlachet, J. (2019, October). Very Frugal Ways to Cook Rice: Famine Prevention and Common Knowledge in Edo Japan. The Recipes Project: Food, Magic, Art, Science, and Medicine. https://recipes.hypotheses.org/15526