Anne Walthall, UC Irvine
Technologies of war and masculine identities: the introduction and diffusion of guns
Did the first guns from Portugal arrive at Tanegashim
a in 1543? In whose interest was it to make this claim? How effective were the sixteenth century guns? Did they, for example, make a decisive difference in the battle of Nagashino between Oda Nobunaga and the Takeda forces? By asking who used guns, under what circumstances, and how did guns function in relation to other weapons of war, it is possible to 
use the history of guns in Japan as a perspective from which to assess what it meant to be a military man during the warring states period and how definitions of masculinity changed through to the eighteenth century for various members of the warrior class.
a in 1543? In whose interest was it to make this claim? How effective were the sixteenth century guns? Did they, for example, make a decisive difference in the battle of Nagashino between Oda Nobunaga and the Takeda forces? By asking who used guns, under what circumstances, and how did guns function in relation to other weapons of war, it is possible to 
use the history of guns in Japan as a perspective from which to assess what it meant to be a military man during the warring states period and how definitions of masculinity changed through to the eighteenth century for various members of the warrior class.Discussant: Gregory Pflugfelder (Columbia)
