A lecture by Yoshiharu Fukuhara, Chairman, Shiseido Co., Ltd., followed by a panel discussion with Nobel Prize–winning economist Paul Samuelson

Aspects of physical appearance such as hairstyle and apparel have functioned throughout the history of Japan as important markers of personal identity and social status. Gregory M. Pflugfelder, Assistant Professor, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University, examines the Tokugawa period preceding the emergence of modern Japan, in particular the tonsorial and sartorial practices that regulated and structured erotic desires. Special attention will be given to semiotic codes surrounding the male body and to the status of the wakashu (youth), who was regarded as a legitimate object of male as well as female sexual desires.

In the Daniel H. Silberberg Lecture Series, organized by the Graduate Students’ Association of the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.