PMJS logs for May, 2000. Total number of messages: 49 (13 in log)

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Macrons (Alexander R. Bay) [36 messages, archived separately] 

Mojikyo mirror site at Stanford (Nobumi Iyanaga) 

rokudo-e (Gil Schneider, Keller Kimbrough, Nobumi Iyanaga) [archived] 

Nagaoka-kyo, again (Joan Piggott) 

An episodic festschrift for Howard Hibbett (Chris Drake) 

Choojuu jinbutsu giga emaki 

Moon and enlightenment (Stephen D. Miller, Niels Guelberg) [archived]

new members: John R. Bentley, Nobumi Iyanaga, Luke S. Roberts, Susan D. Videen, Gil Schneider, Luke Morehouse, Doris L. Croissant, Diana E. Wright, Tricia Wilson-Okamura, Stacie K. Matsumoto 

Lightly edited (see "principles"). Editorial comments in italics.




The main topic in May was a very animated discussion that began with the trouble that macrons cause for computer users. Rather than edit dozens of messages afresh, I shall just point you in the direction of the version found in the public archives:

http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/~pmjs/archive/2000/macrons.html

Question raised by: Alexander R. Bay
Discussants: Anthony J. Bryant, Liza Dalby, Tom Hare, Monica Bethe, Peter Hendriks, Carole Cavanaugh, Richard Bowring, William Londo, Mikael S. Adolphson, Michael Watson, Todd Brown, William Bodiford, Roberta Strippoli, Amanda Stinchecum, Amy V. Heinrich, Philip C. Brown, Michael J. Smitka, Wayne Lammers, Bjarke Frellesvig, Kate Wildman Nakai, David Pollack, Alison Tokita, Rein Raud, Matthew Stavros, Morgan Pitelka.



From: Michael Watson <wat...@...eijigakuin.ac.jp>
Date: Fri, 12 May 2000 00:12:11 +0900
Subject: new members/profiles

Welcome to four new members: John R. Bentley, Nobumi Iyanaga, Luke S.
Roberts and Susan D. Videen. Profiles below.

Thanks also to Mark Hal for updating his profile on his move to Niigata
Prefectural Museum. Some of you who wrote profiles six months ago might want to have a look to see if yours needs changing too. Now that the database is frame-format, there is less need to worry about length. feel free to add a new paragraph if necessary.
http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/~pmjs/pmjs-db.html
As always, the address to use for changes is <wat...@...eijigakuin.ac.jp>

John R. Bentley <bent...@...aii.edu>

Adjunct Professor at Chaminade University of Honolulu
Ph.D. from University of Hawaii
Research interests: historical linguistics; Asuka-Nara era linguistics, literature, history; kokugaku (Kamo no Mabuchi, Motoori Norinaga).

I am currently trying to finish a translation of Nihon shoki that has taken me almost ten years.

Recent Publications:
A Descriptive Grammar of Early Old Japanese Prose. Brill Academic Publishers (due out late 2000).
"A New Look at Paekche and Korean: Data from Nihon shoki." Language Research (36.2). "Toru in Old Japanese." Journal of East Asian Linguistics (8.2).

Nobumi Iyanaga <n-iya...@....bekkoame.ne.jp>

I am an independent researcher in Buddhist studies. This year, I am a part-time instructor at Tokyo University and Otani University. My major area of interest is Buddhist mythology from India to Japan,
focusing on medieval Japanese Buddhism and culture. I did also some work on the history of the image of Orient in Occidental world from ancient times up to the Sixteenth century and published a book (in Japanese) on this issue.

Some of my publications:
Le Roi Maara du Sixieme Ciel et le mythe medieval de la creation du Japon Cahiers d'Extreme-Asie, IX, 1996-1997, Memorial Anna Seidel. Religions traditionnelle d'Asie orientale, II, (Kyoto) p. 323-396.
Daikokuten (Mahaakaala), Hobogirin, VII, Paris, Tokyo, 1994, p. 839-920. Daijizaiten (Mahe"svara) Hobogirin, VI, Paris, Tokyo, 1983, p. 713-765. Gensoo no tooyoo (Imaginary Orient), Tokyo, Seido-sha, 1987

I have a web page at:
http://www.bekkoame.or.jp/~n-iyanag/
where you will find more complete bibliography and a link page.

Susan D. Videen <vide...@....EDU>

Since writing my book on Heichu, I have gone to seminary, been ordained as a Unitarian Universalist minister, and work as a chaplain at St. Louis University Hospital in St. Louis, MO.

Luke S. Roberts <luker...@...anitas.ucsb.edu>

Associate professor at University of California at Santa Barbara My current research is conceptually a two part project. One half is a historiographical critique of narratives which nationalize the pre-Meiji past. The other half is an analysis of the political languages in the Edo period--what they are, how they were used etc. I focus on the language associated with actual politics rather than that of scholars. Regionally, I continue to have an emphasis in Tosa. I have one book, called Mercantilism
in a Japanese Domain: The Merchant Origins of Economic Nationalism in 18th Century Tosa, and various articles in English and Japanese on political thought, petition boxes, samurai diaries, agricultural land assessments etc.

Mark Hal <markh...@....com>

This April I was appointed/hired as an archaeological curator at the soon to open Niigata Prefectural Museum in Nagaoka. My current pojects include writing up the hundreds of chemical analyses of Jomon pottery from the Tokyo Bay area, writing up an equal large number of chemical analyses of kawarake, and analyses of the obsidian sources in Hokkaido. All this work was done while a post-doctoral scholar at the National Museum of Japanese History (in Sakura). Immediate projects, though, are helping ready the Niigata Prefectural Museum to open in August.




From: Nobumi Iyanaga <n-iya...@....bekkoame.ne.jp>
Date: Fri, 12 May 2000 11:35:57 +0900
Subject: Mojikyo mirror site at Stanford

Hello All,

This is my first posting to this mailing list. Douzo yoroshiku onegai itashimasu.

I am an independent researcher in the field of Buddhist studies, and I am interested especially in the Buddhist mythology from India to Japan. I will certainly write on my speciality in this list. But today, I would like to talk about another field of my interests, which is the use of computer in Asian studies. I am a user of Mac for about 9 years, and although I have no special technical knowledge, I am interested in the use of computer in our studies, and in the problems related to the exchange of
data cross-platform, etc.

I looked at the archives of this list, and I saw that there were quite a few messages related to the Mojikyo fonts and problems of gaijis, etc. As a member of the Mojikyo Institute, I worked to convert Mojikyo fonts to the Mac OS, and created other Mac files to be used with them. If you have any
problem using these fonts or files, please let me know; and anyway, I would be very grateful to have any feed-back on my work.

On the other hand, I am glad to announce that very recently, a mirror site of Mojikyo fonts has been set up at the Stanford Center for Buddhist Studies, thanks to the kindess of the people working at this Center. The main url is:

http://www.mojikyo.gr.jp/html/abroad/abroad_top.html

Now, it will be much easier to download Mojikyo huge fonts from the U.S. or Europe.

I wish that this new mirror site will be useful for many people.

Best regards,

Nobumi Iyanaga
Tokyo,
Japan



From: Alba / GS <a...@...mat.ch> [= Gil Schneider]
Date: Sat, 13 May 2000 13:28:49 +0200
Subject: rokudo-e

hello everybody and regards from zurich.
i am currently preparing a paper on rokudo-e (jigoku zoshi, gaki zoshi and yamai soshi emaki). if anyone has any hints on recent publications in this field (in a western language) i would very much appreciate your help. so far i have been mainly using the following material (excl Japanese-only
publications) :

Akiyama T, Japanese Painting, 1961
Andrews A, The Teachings Essential for Rebirth : A Study of Genshin's Oojoo Yooshuu, 1973
Cunningham M, Buddhist Treasures from Nara, 1998
Cunningham M/Lee S, Reflections of Reality in Japanese Art, 1983
Ienaga S (publ), Japanese Scroll Paintings, Vol VI,
Ienaga S, Painting in the Yamato Style, 1973
Okudaira H, Emaki, 1987
Okudaira H, Emaki - Japanese Picture Scolls, 1962
Okudaira H, Narrative Picture Scrolls, 1973

if you came across a recent publication relating to the subject of rokudo-e
i would highly apreciate your news.
best regards
gil



From: kimbr...@...ch.edu (Keller Kimbrough)
Date: Sat, 13 May 2000 08:26:02 -0500
Subject: Re: rokudo-e

Dear Gil,

You might take a look at Barbara Ruch, "Coping with Death: Paradigms of Heaven and Hell and the Six Realms in Early Literature and Painting," in _Flowing Traces: Buddhism in the Literary and Visual Arts of Japan_, ed. James Sanford, William LaFleur, and Masatoshi Nagatomi (Princeton University Press, 1992).

Also, on "Gaki zoshi," see William LaFleur, "Hungry Ghosts and Hungry People: Somaticity and Rationality in Medieval Japan," in _Fragments of a History of the Human Body_, ed. Michel Feher (New York: Urzone, 1989).

Best,
Keller



From: Michael Watson <wat...@...eijigakuin.ac.jp>
Date: Sat, 13 May 2000 23:43:53 +0900
Subject: announcements /new members

A nice transition from diacritics to medieval art/literature. As a reminder of our character code problems, "rokudo-e" with circumflex did not come out in the subject line of Keller Kimbrough's answer--at least on my Japanese system.

> From: kimbr...@...ch.edu (Keller Kimbrough)
<snip>
> Subject: Re: rokud

H-Japan reminds subscribers not to use kana and kanji in the subject line. Diacritics would seem to be a problem too. Shall we call this thread "rokudo-e" just to be safe?

The new member from Switzerland is Gil Schneider. As he has already asked an interesting question on the list, it is only proper for me to give his self-introduction now:

Gil Schneider <a...@...mat.ch>

Graduate of EAP European School of Management Studies (Paris) and Waseda University (Tokyo) where I obtained a LL.M. in Civil Law in 1986. Currently studying at Zurich University, Dept of Eastern Asian Art, focusing on Japanese art of the Heian and Kamakura periods.

One other member signed up in the past few days:

Luke Morehouse <whysper_s...@...oo.com>

Graduate student of Japanese in the East Asian Languages And Literatures Department at the University of Colorado, Boulder. I concentrate on translation and interpretation, but all aspects of Japanese cultural, social, religious, and literary history interest me. Recent translation
projects include: Gyoga Manroku (Stray Notes While Lying on My Back) by Masaoka Shiki, and some short stories by Murakami Haruki.

Welcome to them both.

I was requested off-list to make an archive of the splendid discussion about macrons, romanization and much else. Here it is:
http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/~pmjs/archive/2000/macrons.html
Even tidied up it is the equivalent to some 19 pages in length.

I had to choose between displaying diacritics and kanji. I choose diacritics ("ISO" character encoding) and made little images for the kana/kanji used by Alison Tokita. Thanks again to:

Alexander R. Bay
Anthony J. Bryant, Liza Dalby, Tom Hare, Monica Bethe, Peter Hendriks, Carole Cavanaugh, Richard Bowring, William Londo, Mikael S. Adolphson, Michael Watson, Todd Brown, William Bodiford, Roberta Strippoli, Amanda Stinchecum, Amy V. Heinrich, Philip C. Brown, Michael J. Smitka, Wayne
Lammers, Bjarke Frellesvig, Kate Wildman Nakai, David Pollack, Alison Tokita, Rein Raud, Matthew Stavros, Morgan Pitelka.

If there is any comment you would prefer me to elide [...] in this online version, please let me know. (A few typos were silently corrected and signature files--phone nos. etc.--were cut.)

Michael Watson <wat...@...eijigakuin.ac.jp>



From: Nobumi Iyanaga <n-iya...@....bekkoame.ne.jp>
Date: Sun, 14 May 2000 02:42:03 +0900
Subject: Re: rokudo e

Hello Gil,

There is a French dissertation on this subject by my friend Erika Peschard-Erlih:

Erika Peschard-Erlih, Les mondes infernaux et les peintures des six voies dans le Japon bouddhique.
Paris : Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales Paris 3, 1991, 4 vol. ; 30 cm -- v. 1-1 - v. 3

I think this is an excellent work, although the illustration is not good, because of the photocopy.

I hope this helps you.

Best regards,

Nobumi Iyanaga
Tokyo,
Japan



From: Joan Piggott <j...@...nell.edu>
Date: Fri, 19 May 2000 09:13:39 -0700
Subject: Nagaoka-kyo, again

Hello to all,

Some of you requested further information on the Nagaoka-kyo detached palace find and the preservation campaign. I have translated some material and added an abstract of my own. Please see it at the following URL. Eventually I will have my own webpage for this sort of thing, but it is not quite ready.

http://twinpeaks.ilrlib.cornell.edu/nagaoka

Clicking that link should bring anyone interested to the translated materials. Try it!

Those of you interested in archaeological affairs may also want to take a look at

http://www.EastAsianArchaeology.org

Its Japan editor is Simon Holledge, of The Society for East Asian Archaeology Web Site

Should anyone want more information on the Nagaoka site, which I hope to be visiting in person next week, contact Prof. Akira Yamanaka, Mie University, at ...@...an.mie-u.ac.jp

So far the preservation effort seems to have halted further construction. How long that will be the case is not certain. I think letters arguing for preservation could still be helpful. Send them to:

Mr. Shigenobu Nagamori, President
Nihon Densan Kabushiki Kaisha
Nishi-kyo ku Edatsukahara 1-27
Kyoto, Japan

Best,

Joan Piggott
Associate Professor of Pre-1600 Japanese History
Cornell University


From: chris drake <ccdr...@...net.ne.jp>

Organization: atomi college

Date: Sun, 21 May 2000 20:10:24 +0900

Subject: New publication


Some people may be interested in the recent publication of the first five volumes of 'An episodic festschrift for Howard Hibbett.' Each small volume, the size of a thin bunkobon, contains annotated translations of important works of Edo-period literature, with introductions by the translators. All
the volumes are edited by John Solt. The first five are:

1. 'An Account of the Prosperity of Edo' (two segments from 'Edo hanjooki') by Terakado Seiken, introduced and translated by Andrew Markus

2. 'Tips for Travelers: Advice for Wayfarers from Late Edo Travel Literature,' by Tachibana Nankei, Kyokutei Bakin, and Yasumi Kageyama, introduced and translated by Andrew Markus

3. 'The Peony Lantern' ("Botan no tooroo" from 'Otogi booko'), by Asai Ryooi, introduced and translated by Maryellen Toman Mori

4. 'Copying Bird Calls: A Hundred Linked Haikai,' by Nishiyama Sooin, introduced and translated by Chris Drake

5. 'Haikai on Love: A Hundred-Verse Linked Sequence,' by Matsuki Tantan, introduced and translated by Chris Drake

The volumes cost $5 each but will normally be sold as a set of five. Single volumes can, however, be ordered in bulk for class texts. Orders should be sent to:

highmoonoon
9121 Sunset Boulevard
Hollywood
California 90069
fax: 310-276-0242

Shipping will begin in early June. Further volumes are scheduled to appear in the fall and in 2001.

Chris Drake



From: "Stephen D. Miller" <smil...@...t.colorado.edu>
Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 09:20:40 -0600
Subject: moon and enlightenment

Greetings!

A student of mine is interested in finding out the source of the moon=enlightenment trope in Japanese literature/poetry. I can only guess that it might have originally come from something like the
Mahaparinirvana Sutra via Chinese literary permutations, but before I lead her in the wrong direction, I thought I might inquire here to you all. Any help you can lend to this would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks so much.
Stephen Miller
University of Colorado



From: Michael Watson <wat...@...eijigakuin.ac.jp>
Date: Sat, 27 May 2000 00:00:56 +0900
Subject: two questions

I'd like to relay two questions to the list.

First is another art historical question from a Zurich graduate student. Michael Kersten writes to ask about recent work on the Choojuu jinbutsu giga emaki ("Scroll of Frolicking Animals and People"). He is familiar with recent work by Mimi Yiengpruksawan. Could anyone suggest other new work on
the scroll in English, French or German? (He does not read Japanese.) Answers, please, to the list or directly to
MichaelKers...@...ess.unizh.ch

The second is from Stephen Miller. He tried to post it himself but it did not reach the list. Apologies if you receive it twice

[Omitted. ListBot was suffering a slow down.]




From: guelb...@...waseda.ac.jp (Niels GUELBERG)
Date: Mon, 29 May 2000 10:36:07 +0900 (JST)
Subject: re: moon and enlightenment

Niels GUELBERG
guelb...@...waseda.ac.jp
2000.05.29

About Stephen Miller's question:
There is no single source for the moon=enlightenment trope. Look at the Taisho daizokyo indices or at the Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association (CBETA) edition (recently vols 1-32 completed)
under: http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/cbeta/index.htm

In Japanese Literature there are different traditions, so it would be better to work out the differences of i.e. Tendai and Shingon (or kenkyoo and mikkyoo).



From: Michael Watson <wat...@...eijigakuin.ac.jp>
Date: Tue, 30 May 2000 22:22:02 +0900
Subject: new members

We now number over 200 with the addition of four new pmjs members: Doris L. Croissant, Diana E. Wright, Tricia Wilson-Okamura, and Stacie K. Matsumoto. Welcome to them all--and thanks to all of you for bringing us this far. Niels Guelberg has sent a detailed profile to replace the one that I had
compiled for him. He also introduces his online database of kooshiki texts.

Doris L. Croissant <ledder...@...mail.com>
Professor, Kunsthistorisches Institut, University of Heidelberg, Germany

I am presently studying the visual semantics of Genji illustrations, especially the representation of musical instruments in relation to gender and erotics. I am therefore very much interested in linguistic methods of evaluating metaphorical meaning in the Genji and other narratives. I teach Japanese art at Heidelberg University.

Diana E. Wright <dwri...@...wwu.edu>

Asst. Professor Japanese History
Western Washington University, Bellingham WA
PhD., University of Toronto 1996

Areas of specialization:
Edo Japan in general--Religio-political sphere & Women's History in particular

Publications:
"Female Combatants & Japan's Meiji Restoration: the case of Aizu" War in History, Fall 2000

"Mantokuji: More Than A Divorce Temple", chapter in forthcoming
_Japanese Women & Buddhism_, Barbara Ruch, ed. (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies) Fall 2000/Spring 2001

"Severing the Karmic 'Ties That Bind': The Divorce Temple Mantokuji", Monumenta Nipponica 52/3 (Autumn 1997): 357-80.

Tricia Wilson-Okamura <tmoka...@...way.uchicago.edu>

I am a PhD candidate in Classical Languages and Literatures, specializing in Homer, at the University of Chicago. My interests are in martial epic, particularly Heike Monogatari, and Greek drama.

Stacie K. Matsumoto <matsu...@....harvard.edu>

Ph.D. candidate in premodern Japanese history and religions at Harvard University.

Guelberg, Niels.
Associate Professor, School of Law, Waseda University. I have worked on Heian "nikki bungaku" (German translation and study of the "Toonomine shooshoo monogatari" which is a mid-Heian guide for letter-writing for noble ladies, not a diary), on "wakan hikaku bungaku" (the influence of kanshi-poetry on waka) and on setsuwa bungaku (German transl. of the "Kohon setsuwa shuu").

Recent interests are Buddhist literary texts in Japanese which were used in various rituals (hyoobyaku, ganmon, kyooke, wasan, and kooshiki), Japanese Buddhist apocryphes (gikyoo) and the institutional history of temples and shrines. As a result of a three-years-research, I started an online-catalogue of manuscripts and early prints of kooshiki-texts, linked with a fulltext-database which solves the problem of pre-modern texts in a software-free way. The database can be found at:
http://faculty.web.waseda.ac.jp/guelberg/koshiki/datenb-j.htm



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