[Year of Japan] Lectures led by Maki Fukuda
Maki Fukuda is a professor of legal history at Kobe University (Japan)
She will give two lectures at UPHF on September 10, 2026, at the Tertiales Campus
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Le 10/09/2026
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15:00 - 18:00
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Conference
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Campus des Tertiales
Lecture Hall C, 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Room 301, starting at 5:00 p.m.
Lecture 1: The Significance of Tattoos in Japanese Criminal Law
3:00 p.m. - Lecture Hall C
Japanese tattoos are often associated with the yakuza, the Japanese mafia, and are considered the mark of criminals. However, during the Edo period (1603–1868), which preceded the rapid Westernization of the system, tattoos were also used as a form of punishment. Much like branding with a hot iron in France, tattoos were employed as an additional penalty to identify repeat offenders. The tattooed mark varied by region and often represented the number of offenses committed by the criminal.
This lecture explores the legal system of the Edo period, which was quite different from that of the post-Westernization era. We will first define what the tattoo punishment entailed, drawing on images from the period. Then we will discuss the hypothesis put forward by historians of Japanese law regarding the rehabilitation of criminals during the Edo period and its connection to tattooing.
Lecture 2: “The Empire of Signs.” Capital Punishment and the Economy of Criminal Visibility. Edo and Paris, 18th–19th Centuries
5:00 p.m. - Room 301
Public executions in France, especially those under the Ancien Régime, are often a subject of research in French academic circles. Today, we know that executions carried out in public had multiple political meanings and were far from being mere lynchings.
In Japan, too, public executions existed until 1877, during the early years of legal Westernization. During the preceding period, known as the Edo period (1603–1868), public executions held a certain significance for the ruling authorities, just as they did under the French Ancien Régime.
In this lecture, we will address the topic of public execution in Japan during the Edo period, drawing primarily on Japanese scholarship in the field of political philosophy. We will focus particularly on representations of public execution and the symbols used to demonstrate—as Roland Barthes said of Japan—that the country was “the empire of signs.”