Reading between the Rungs: Japanese Acrobats and Victorian Britain, 1867 - 1885

Abstract

This thesis examines the Victorian reception of Japanese acrobatic troupes from 1867 to 1885. As the first Japanese people with whom many Britons at home had close encounters, Japanese acrobatic troupes shaped Victorian perceptions of Japan, providing a critical case study for understanding how Victorians made sense of themselves in comparison to other people. As Victorians watched the Japanese acrobats on stage, they projected their theories, fears, and desires onto the performers while struggling to fit them into their existing worldviews of race, gender, and empire. In the late 1860s and 1870s, Japanese acrobats complicated Victorians’ self-image as the more ‘evolved’ or ‘superior’ people, but by 1885, Victorians’ uncertainty regarding these acrobats had been replaced with a desire to appropriate and consume them in whatever ways possible.