Prof. Joyce Madancy's class in East Asian Traditions will
have an unusual visitor in Friday morning's class _ a
samurai personified by Ryan Mackey '01, complete with armor
and weapons.
Mackey, a member of the area chapter of the Society
for Creative Anachronism, adopted the Japanese warrior
persona after learning about the SCA from Prof. James Adrian of
chemistry, himself a former member of the organization.
For Mackey, a European history major with a minor
in East Asian Studies, the samurai was in part an outgrowth of
his senior thesis in which he compared European and
Japanese feudalism.
European knights were motivated largely by
religion, whereas their counterparts in Japan were internally
motivated by allegiance to their warlords, he explains. The knights of
Europe went on the Crusades. The Japanese warriors invaded
North Korea. Like the knights, samurai were either born into the
fighting caste or demonstrated an affinity for battle.
Mackey meets regularly with other members of the
local chapter of the SCA, but not entirely out of a passion for
re-creating the Japanese warrior class. “I'm in it for the
sword fighting,” he admits. “But I try
to make things historically accurate.”
Mackey made his own suit of armor, which goes from his
neck to his thighs. He has a helmet (now on loan to another
SCA samurai) and weapons made of bamboo.
A student in the College's MAT program, Mackey is
doing his student teaching at Ballston Spa High School. The ninth
grade class he is teaching is about to embark on a unit on
feudalism, and Mackey plans to play the part for their benefit: “I hope to
bring this into the classroom,” he said. “This is the history of the
world we're talking about.”
Madancy's class meets Friday at 10:50 a.m. in Social
Sciences 014.