International Symposium on Japanese Visual Culture: Performance, Media, and Text

September 16th-17th, 2011

8:30 PM
International Symposium on Japanese Visual Culture:
Performance, Media, and Text
Venue: Room 403 Kent Hall, Columbia University
*Sponsored by National Institute for Japanese Literature, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture, and the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and Department of Archeology and Art History at Columbia University
Symposium Information:
The symposium is an outgrowth of a multi-year research project by an international team of scholars, sponsored by the National Institute of Japanese Literature, of visual artifacts and texts in collections in the United States, notably at the Spencer Collection in the New York Public Library, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mary Griggs Burke Collection of Japanese Art, John C. Weber Collection, and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The symposium focuses on a cluster of key issues foregrounded by these visual artifacts: 1) the place of other worlds, from animals and plants to the supernatural, and their intersection with orthodox religious views, 2) the reconstructions of court culture and their variegated functions in the medieval and Edo periods, 3) the role of famous places and cultural topography, and 4) the role of samurai narratives and their relationship to performance, painting, and gender. Through these four major themes, the symposium examines the larger issues of media, performance, and texts, with particular attention to the rich interrelationships among painting, literary culture, religion, and theater.

Friday September 16th

• 8:30-9:15 – Registration
• 9:15-9:45 – Keynote Speech: Haruo Shirane, Columbia University
  
  “Cultures of the Book, the Parlor, and the Roadside: Muromachi Tales and Issues of Text, Picture, and Media”
• 
  Literature of Other Worlds, Animals, and Plants:
  
  From Folk Literature to Picture Scrolls
• Session 1
• 10:00-10:25 – Komine Kazuaki, Rikkyō University (in Japanese)
  
  “In Search of the Dragon Palace: Representations of an Other World”
• 10:25-10:50 – Saitō Maori, NIJL (in Japanese)
  
  “Alien Creatures and Pictorial Expression: Tales of Messengers from the Gods and Buddhas”
• 10:50-11:15 – R. Keller Kimbrough, University of Colorado
  
  “Sacred Charnel Visions: Painting the Dead in Illustrated Scrolls of the Demon Shuten Dôji”
• 11:15-11:45 – Discussant: Bernard Faure (Columbia University)
• 
  Session 2
• 13:00-13:25 – Max Moerman, Barnard College/Columbia University
  
  “Demonology and Eroticism: Islands of Women in the Japanese Buddhist Imagination”
• 13:25-13:50 – Tokuda Kazuo, Gakushūin Women’s College (in Japanese)
  
  “Images of Monsters—the Achievement of Muromachi Tale Picture Scrolls”
• 13:50-14:20 – Discussant: Michael Como (Columbia University)
• 
  Famous Places and Cultural Topography
• Session 3
• 14:30-14:55 – Takagishi Akira, Tokyo Institute of Technology (in Japanese)
  
  “The Intersection of Temple Origin Myths and Buddhist Paintings — Illustrated Scrolls of the Shrine Origin Myth of Kitano Tenjin and the Development of Medieval Paintings of the Six Paths”
• 14:55-15:20 – Matthew P. McKelway, Columbia University
  
  “When Famous Places Become Narrative: Gukei’s ‘Handscrolls of Scenes of City and Country’”
• 15:20-15:50 – Discussant: Sinead Kehoe (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
• 
  Session 4
• 16:00-16:25 – Tomoko Sakomura, Swarthmore College
  
  “Visual Remembrances: Flower Viewing, Poetry, and Yoshino in Text and Image”
• 16:25-16:50 – Suzuki Jun, NIJL (in Japanese)
  
  “Image and Text in Hokusai’s Azuma Asobi (Playing in the Eastern Provinces)”
• 16:50-17:20 – Discussant: Robert Goree (Columbia University)

Saturday September 17th

• 8:30-9:15 – Registration
• 9:15-9:45 – Keynote Speech: Imanishi Yūichirō, Director General of NIJL (in Japanese)
  
  “Illustrated Books and Graphemes”
• Discussant: David Lurie (Columbia University)
• 
  Reconstructing Court Culture: From Emaki to Edo Visual Culture
• Session 5
• 10:00-10:25 – Terashima Tsuneyo, NIJL (in Japanese)
  
  “Portraits of Poetic Immortals and Classical Poetry: The Origins and Development of Kasen-e”
• 10:25-10:50 – Ishikawa Tōru, Keiō University (in Japanese)
  
  “Japanese Court Culture as Represented in Tale of Genji Illustrations and Nara Ehon”
• 10:50-11:20 – Discussant: Masako Watanabe (Metropolitan Museum)
• 
  Session 6
• 11:30-11:55 – Melissa McCormick, Harvard University
  
  “Flower Personification and Imperial Regeneration in The Chrysanthemum Spirit”
• 11:55-12:20 – Andrew Watsky, Princeton University
  
  “Representation in the Non-representational Arts: Poetry and Pots in Sixteenth-Century Japan”
• 12:20-12:50 – Discussant: John Carpenter (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
• 
  Performance and Painting: Women and Samurai Narratives
• Session 7
• 14:00-14:25 – Kobayashi Kenji, NIJL (in Japanese)
  
  “Illustrated Texts of Kōwaka Performance Narrations: The Case of the Takebun Screen Painting”
• 14:25-14:50 – Suzuki Hiroko, Tezukayama University (in Japanese)
  
  “Female Characters in History Puppet Plays (Jidai Jōruri)”
• 14:50-15:15 – Roberta Strippoli, Binghamton University, State University of New York
  
  “Song without Music, Dance without Rhythm: Illustrating Shirabyōshi in Early Modern Scrolls and Albums”
• 15:15-15:45 – Discussant: Joshua Mostow (University of British Columbia)
• 15:45-16:00 Closing Remarks: Haruo Shirane