In medieval Japan, a number of Buddhist deities emerged, whose main function was to increase human life - to protect that life from the outset, during the first stages of embryonic gestation - and to transform death into a preliminary, quasi-embryological, preliminary stage toward rebirth. These deities were often connected by specific symbols, for instance the wish-fulfilling jewel (cintâmani) and the sword. This talk will focus on two such figures, Aizen and Fudô, and on their role in medieval representations of power and fecundity.

Discussing how best to teach Japanese as a foreign language is meaningless unless teachers of Japanese are aware of the process that students go through to learn the language. Understanding how an adult student learns a foreign language, however, is not an easy task, because it requires knowledge in more than one disciplinary field. The talk addresses this issue and discusses its implications for the teaching of Japanese as a foreign language.

 

The nenbutsu is a unique form of religious expression in Japanese cultural history. Because its verbalization was preferred over its original usage in visualization meditation, it took on a variety of liturgical forms that led to its jump into art and theatre. Below is a fourteenth-century picture of Kuamidabutsu, a disciple of Hônen, leading a performance ritual of elegantly sung nenbutsu.

 

This symposium is made possible by the Hiroshi Nitta Fund of the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture, and is cosponsored by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, the Medieval Japanese Studies Foundation, and the C.V. Starr East Asian Library.

For additional details, click here.

October 27th, 2006 (Friday)
403 Kent Hall
9:00AM - 4:50PM

Academic Conference: "Texts and Contexts: Historicizing Japanese Literature in the Meiji, Taishô, and Early Shôwa Periods"

9:00AM – 12:20AM Morning Session

Kôno Kensuke (Nihon University)

* "1930-40 nendai no shuppan bunka to bungaku no keishiki: Sengo bungaku to dôjin zasshi" [English title: Postwar literature and literary coterie magazines]

Yamamoto Yoshiaki (Gakushûin University)

* "Media no naka no ‘shishôsetsu sakka’: Kasai Zenzô no ba’ai" [English title: The media and the I-novelist]

Tsuboi Hideto (Nagoya University)

* These two papers will be delivered in Japanese.

"Seeking the Concourse of Voice and Écriture: Rethinking the Genealogy of Modern Japanese Poetry"

2:00PM – 4:50PM Afternoon Session

Sari Kawana (University of Massachusetts)

"Incompetent Authors and Efficient Editors: Behind the Scenes of Modern Japanese Literature"

Ted Mack (University of Washington)

"Diasporic Imperialism: 'Colonial Literature' in São Paulo, 1908-1941"

Jonathan Zwicker (University of Michigan)

"Bakin among the Bostonians: The Japanese Novel in Nineteenth-Century America"

October 28th, 2006 (Saturday)
301 Philosophy Hall
9:00AM - 3:30PM

Professional Seminar: "Translating Japan: The Challenges of Publishing Japanese Authors Overseas"

9:30AM – 10:15AM Preliminary Talk:

Stephen Snyder (Middlebury College)

"Some Issues in Publishing Japanese Authors Today"

10:30AM – 12:30PM

"From Translation to Publication to Readership: A Workshop"

Scholars, translators, publishers, and representatives of a number of organizations that are actively involved in the enterprise of translation will be on hand to share their perspectives with the audience.

2:00PM – 2:45PM Special Lecture:

Koizumi Masashi (Kinki University)

"The History and Prospects of Textbook Publishing in Postwar Japan"

A related symposium is being held at the New York Public Library. For further information, please visit the Library's website.

 

Internationally acclaimed Japanese-German author Yoko Tawada will give a reading in English, German, and Japanese and discuss some of her works, including her 1993 Akutagawa Prize–winning novel The Bridegroom Was a Dog (Inumukoiri) and Where Europe Begins, her first volume of short stories translated from German and Japanese into English.

Presented in collaboration with the Japan Foundation, New York, and Columbia University's Department of Germanic Languages & Literatures.

 

The "great mandala" (daimandara) devised by the Buddhist teacher Nichiren (1222-1282) depicts the assembly of the Lotus Sūtra on Sacred Vulture Peak. Inscribed entirely in characters, it is at once both sacred text and sacred object. In Nichiren's lifetime, it served not only as a personal object of worship for his followers but united them as a community; in the later Nichiren tradition, it has also played a key role in lineage transmission and as a marker of sectarian identity.

 

A set of Japanese textile fragments reveal a complex web of entangled histories. They once shared a single existence as a garment, likely worn by a high-ranking member of sixteenth-century society. Subsequently, the garment was fragmented and made into an altar cloth, crossing the border from a secular to a sacred context. By the late nineteenth through mid-twentieth century, the sacred cloth was dismembered and established separate narratives as collectible objects in the hands of individual collectors. This lecture will trace this transfiguration from garment to fragments and highlight the shifting values and functions of textiles as clothing, ritual offerings, and coveted museum objects.

 

The poets of the Man'yōshū had a particular affection for nature, especially flowers, grass, birds, and animals, but this was not a primitive "love of nature." For example, their favorite plant was the bush clover, found in the cultivated fields near the Nara capital, which formed an important environmental nexus between nature and culture in early Japan.

『萬葉集』の歌人たちは、自然、特に「野」の花・草・鳥・動物を愛した。しかし、それは素朴な自然愛ではなかった。例えば、歌人たちが最も愛好した萩は、平城京の郊外の開発によって生まれた「野」に咲く花であった。自然と文化の間に新たに創り出された「野」という環境が、日本人の自然との関わり方の原型を形作ったのである。

This lecture will be presented in Japanese.

 

The Riverside Theatre at Riverside Church
Entrance is at 91 Claremont Avenue, just north of 120th Street between Broadway and Riverside Drive. Map & Directions: http://www.theriversidechurchny.org/about/?directions

Paid parking is available at Claremont Avenue Garage.
Entrance is on 120th Street, between Riverside Drive and Claremont Avenue

Program:
Part I: Orchestral Works (Kangengaku)
Part II: Sacred Shrine Maiden Dance (Kagura mai)
Part III: Dance Pieces (Bugaku)

The Ono Gagaku Society, which celebrates its 120th anniversary next spring, was founded in 1887 by Ryōdo Ono, chief priest of the Ono Terusaki Shrine in Tokyo. It is the oldest public Japanese gagaku orchestra and dance group in Japan and is one of the very few public troupes of musician-dancers to be trained exclusively by retired masters of the Music Department of the Board of Ceremonies of the Imperial Household Agency (Kunaichō shikibushoku gakubu). The Ono Gagaku Society, currently comprised of ninety members, performs at Shrine ceremonies and public venues throughout Japan. Since 1972, it has performed in the United States and Europe and was awarded the 1980 Grand Prix by the France Records Association for distinguished performance in the category of Non-Western Music. The Ono Gagaku Society maintains a training school for gagaku musicians in Tokyo.

This event is free and open to the public. No reservations are necessary.

This concert is presented by the Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies, Columbia University and sponsored by the International Shinto Foundation (New York) and the International Foundation for Arts and Culture (Tokyo).

Internationally best-selling author Hitomi Kanehara will discuss her novel Snakes and Earrings.

Hitomi Kanehara was born in Tokyo on August 8, 1983. She stopped attending school at the age of eleven. After she left home as a teenager, she sent her stories to her literary translator father by e-mail and he helped her edit them. At the age of 21, she wrote Snakes and Earrings which won the 2004 Akutagawa Prize, a prestigious Japanese literary award. One of the judges, the celebrated writer Ryu Murakami, said her book was ‘easily the top choice, receiving the highest marks of any work since I became a member of the selection panel.’ The Japanese edition of Snakes and Earrings has sold over a million copies, topping all the bestseller lists. Her other books include Ash Baby, Amebic, and her latest work Autofiction.