pmjs logs for October 2003. Total number of messages: 62

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* Atsumori Noh Video (Anthony J. Bryant, Yumiko Hulvey, Sharon Domier, Michelle Li, Michael Watson, Barbara Nostrand, Robert Jay Gould, Michael Watson, Laurel Rasplica Rodd, Jonah Salz)
* 35th anniversary events of the Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies, Columbia University on 10/29/03 (Barbara Ruch)
* Question on Parallelism as a Literary Device (Robert Juhl, Robert Borgen, Richard Bowring, Mark Teeuwen, Brian Ruppert, Noel Pinnington, Kenneth Bryson)
* Japanese Studies Library Position at University of Southern California
* new members: Kenneth J. Bryson, Kristina Buhrman, and Hilofumi Yamamoto
* new members: Kenneth J. Bryson, Kristina Buhrman, and Hilofumi Yamamoto
* query [about symbol] (David Pollack, Michael Watson, Lawrence Marceau, Barbara Nostrand )
* Bulletin of Portuguese Japanese Studies (Joao Paulo Oliveira e Costa)
* oldest kami statue found today in Izumo, Shimane Pref. (Cynthea Bogel)
* Takuan (Peter McMillan)
* The Noh Ominameshi (Michael Watson)
* AJLS conference program (Eiji Sekine)
* Kyoto Lectures 2003-October (Antony Boussemart)
* ojoden (Michelle Li, Amy Heinrich, Aileen Gatten, Thomas Howell)
* UnixGrep macro for Nisus Writer Express (Nobumi Iyanaga)
* Poem by Jimon (Ingo Schaefer, Richard Bowring)
* --> shiranami [was: Poem by Jimon] (Susan Klein, Anthony Chambers, Royall Tyler , Kenneth Bryson, Noel Pinnington, Lawrence Marceau , Peter Shapinsky, Richard Bowring, Michael Watson, Susan Klein, Kenneth Bryson, Thomas Howell)
* --> Poem by Jimon (Ingo Schaefer, Lawrence Marceau)
* inscription dates versus dedication dates (Melanie Trede, Karen L. Brock)
* holothurian haiku book is out (Robin Gill)
* 5th anniversary events of the Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies, Columbia University on 10/29/03 (Barbara Ruch)
* infant mortality rates in Tokugawa era (Gina Cogan, Philip Brown, Alexander Bay)
* iro iro (Michael Watson)


Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2003 08:49:31 -0500

From: "Anthony J. Bryant" <ajbry...@...iana.edu>

Subject: Re: Atsumori Noh Video


I hope you can find one. It's one of my favorite Noh plays. I seem to remember that when I lived in Japan, every weekend on NHK there was a play of some sort broadcast -- Noh or kabuki I can't recall which -- and I'm really wishing I'd've had the foresight to tape them.

Heck, now I'm starting to wonder if I was even hallucinating the broadcasts.

Tony



Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 11:19:31 -0400

From: Y Hulvey <yhul...@...l.ufl.edu>

Subject: Re: Atsumori Noh Video


Mack,

You might want to try the Broadcast Museum (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) website listed below.
http://www.nhk.or.jp/bunken/museum-en/index.html

I don't know if it will help, but it might provide leads.

Yumiko



Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2003 11:40:37 -0400

From: sdom...@...rary.umass.edu

Subject: Re: Atsumori Noh Video


Mack,

I ran into this problem last spring when I was desperately searching for a
particular Kabuki performance for use in class. I worked my way through NHK
Software shop, Hinoki Shoten, Wan'ya Shoten, looked at the various theatres to
see what they were selling and came up short. I even emailed Dento Bunka Hoso
<http://www.dentoubunka.co.jp/>, which was showing the particular play I
needed. Unfortunately, they couldn't sell a copy nor send one to me and we
couldn't subscribe since we weren't in Japan. As a result of my search, I
agreed to exchange videos with a kind soul in Japan who would reciprocate with
Dento Bunka Hoso tapes.

As a librarian, though, this makes me mad and I think we should be able to do
something about it. In the past when we have been able to document a need for
access to materials, Japan Foundation, International House of Japan, the
Monbukagakusho, North American Coordinating Council for Japanese Library
Resources (NCC) and other parties have been very cooperative in helping us to
gain easy access.

I think it might be time for those of you who teach premodern (literature,
arts, etc.) to band together and present a request for help to Japan
Foundation. We now have access to unbelievable resources through interlibrary
loan and purchases, but videotaped performances are still very hard to get.
Clearly we need help in getting legal access to these materials. It will take
some significant intervention to set up the connections and provide the means
to acquire legal copies.

The first step is to find out how many people are interested, I think, and then
to approach someone who can work on our behalf.

Sharon Domier
East Asian Studies Librarian
UMass Amherst



Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 12:01:32 -0700

From: Michelle I Li <mi...@...nford.edu>

Subject: Re: Atsumori Noh Video


Dear Mack,
You've probably done this already, but I'm wondering if you checked the Oto
to eizoo series available at Stanford (the video anthology of Japanese
classical performing arts). I tried to check the catalog online for you
but, unfortunately, the videos are only divided by type (noh, kabuki, ect.)
and there is no break down of what plays are actually shown. However, if
you haven't checked this series and you need someone local to look for you,
please let me know since I'm still here at Stanford for awhile.
Michelle Li



Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 10:10:34 +0900

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

Subject: Re: Atsumori Noh Video


The noh play "Atsumori" is included in the syllabus for my class on Heike monogatari this autumn, so I too would like to be able to show video extracts. The net result of much googling was somewhat disappointing. The "kuse" section from "Atsumori" is included on two videos for people learning noh dance (shimai):

http://awaya-noh.com/form/shop.html
http://www.webslab.com/wanya/cd/video01.html

The latter is part of a large set by the Hosho school including the dance sections from many important plays, and would surely be a good resource to have for teaching. It is a shame, though, that so few complete plays are available on DVD or VHS.

There was an interesting discussion of Dento Bunka Hoso last spring on pmjs.
http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/~pmjs/logs/2003/2003.04.html

Michael Watson



Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 21:49:28 -0400

From: Barbara Nostrand <nostr...@....org>

Subject: Re: Atsumori Noh Video


I would think that all we need is for some office in Japan with dual
banque accounts to accept payment in foreign currency, buy the things
by banque transfer, and then forward them to us when they arrive. The
problem is that a mid-sized operation is the hardest to set up. One
or two items once in a while can be done on a friendship basis. Hiring
someone to do this means that you have to have a lot of volume to keep
prices down. If only Amazon could be convinced to carry this stuff, we
would all be able to order from them through their web site.

Barbara Nostrand



Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 16:37:58 +0900

From: "Robert Jay Gould" <rob...@...-a.or.jp>

Subject: Re: Atsumori Noh Video


I am currently living in Japan, and I have good contacts with many libraries (My fiance and most my friends are Librarians, I hang too much around books maybe.) Besides that I was working for Kanagawa International Association doing research about Youkai, thus I also have many contacts within the prefectural government. When I was in the US myself, I found it a daunting task to find materials from Japan and I can understand quite well the frustration.
 
Anyways I have been looking into how to ship books and videos out to the states and I have come up with a few solutions. Plus I am confident I actually can obtain most materials. But I'm not sure how much demand there really is. Anyways I have some time on my hands now between my studies so I guess we can test this out. I'll set up a small website for you all to order things.
 
I already have two bank accounts and I can transfer money with little problems between them. By monday it will be up, but if anyone has requests meanwhile please send me e-mails and I'll get working on your requests, and I'll have a chance to evaluate how much demand there really is.
 
                                       -Robert Jay Gould
 
Kanagawa International Association, KIA
e-mail: rob...@...-a.or.jp



Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 22:18:52 +0900

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

Subject: Re: Atsumori Noh Video


A small correction. I wrote earlier that the "kuse" section from "Atsumori" is included in a video sold here
http://awaya-noh.com/form/shop.html
but as a sharp-eyed member has pointed out, another video in the same set includes the final "kiri" section.

Michael Watson



Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 08:06:43 -0600

From: Laurel Rasplica Rodd <Laurel.R...@...orado.edu>

To: Multiple recipients of pmjs <p...@...eijigakuin.ac.jp>


Sharon--
I'd be very supportive of such a joint request to whomever might be in a
position to help. There's a clear need for ready access to such videos (and
others, as well) for teaching.

Laurel Rasplica Rodd
Professor of Japanese and Comparative Literature
CB 279
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309

AY 03/04:
Visiting Professor of Japanese
Washington University in St. Louis
Asian and Near Eastern Languages, Box 1111
st. Louis, MO 63130-4899

Quoting sdom...@...rary.umass.edu:

Mack,

I ran into this problem last spring when I was desperately searching for a
particular Kabuki performance for use in class. I worked my way through NHK
...snip...
then
to approach someone who can work on our behalf.

Sharon Domier
East Asian Studies Librarian

UMass Amherst



Date: Sun, 05 Oct 2003 04:02:38 +0900

From: "salz jonah" <jonahabr...@...mail.com>

Subject: Atsumori Noh Video


I am continuing to do my part for subtitling and narrating noh videos: as mentioned earlier, IZUTSU (subtitled in Karen Brazell's translation) and THIS IS NOH are available through Maruzen in Kyoto and Hinoki Shoten; THIS IS KYOGEN and BUSU are available at Kyoto Maruzen and through the producer. Both sets are sold at HIGHLY inflated prices through Insight Media in U.S.. If anyone can suggest a better distributor, I would be happy to suggest it to respective producers.

Recently the Shigeyamas have sold DVDs of kyogen performances in region-free versions, although no subtitles. Mansai's KYOGEN DE GOZARU has both DVD and DVD-ROM with English, available through Amazon.co.jp. Meanwhile, I am at work on subtitling a Rashomon DVD: the version directed by Mansai Nomura a few years back...

Jonah Salz, Ryukoku University
Fellow, Center for the Humanities
Wesleyan University (thru 4/2004)



Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2003 17:10:02 -0400

From: Barbara Ruch <br...@...umbia.edu

Subject: 35th anniversary events of the Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies, Columbia University on 10/29/03


The Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies is pleased to commemorate
its 35th Anniversary. We would be honored to have your presence at our
celebration. All events are free and open to the public. Please save
the date.

Wednesday, October 29th, 2003
at the Rotunda of Low Library
Columbia University

5:00-6:00pm A CELEBRATORY LECTURE
in honor of the memory of eleven nun-artists _Celebrating Buddhist Art
by Edo-Period Princess-Nuns_ by Prof. Patricia Fister of the Int'l
Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto

6:00-7:00pm AN OFFERTORY OF MUSIC
in honor of the memory of the eleven imperial abbesses whose religious
art we celebrate.

"Ave Suavis Dilectio" Motet, Opus 6 (1676)
by the Italian nun Isabella Leonarda (1670-1704)
An offering from Western nun to Japanese nun contemporaries

"Fuk"(kumi uta), for the koto
Songs the princess-nuns knew well

A World Premier "Das Cartas" (2003)
for mixed chorus, harp and koto by Hiroya Miura
Based on Hyakunin isshu (100 Poets/100 Poems)
a collection beloved by nuns and in their convents, used in a poetry
card game

"ear for EAR(antiphonies)" (1983) by John Cage
A meditative choral work influenced by Japanese sacred chant

"Dan no ura" by Kinshi Tsuruta & Yoko Mizuno
A lament of war; a prayer for peace
performed by eminent biwa artist Kakujo Nakamura

A reception will follow at 7:00pm. Please help us to anticipate your
presence by kindly sending an RSVP by fax (212-854-1470) or email
(medievalja...@...umbia.edu).

On October 29, 2003 the Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies, located
at Columbia University, celebrates in New York the 35th anniversary of
its founding and the 10th anniversary of its Imperial Buddhist Convent
Research and Restoration Project in Kyoto and Nara, Japan.

The 2003 anniversary year began this spring with the Institute's
world-premier exhibition at the Nomura Art Museum in Kyoto of "Art by
Buddhist Nuns: Treasures from the Imperial Buddhist Convents of Japan,"
the first ever exhibition of Edo-period religious art created by
Japanese nuns.

The celebratory events planned for New York include a richly illustrated
public lecture by curator of that exhibition, Professor Patricia Fister
of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto, who
will speak about the Japanese royal princess-nuns of the 17th and 18th
centuries whose amazing talent and faith produced some of the Edo
period's most moving Buddhist artworks, none of which had ever been seen
before by the Japanese public. Her lecture, entitled "Celebrating
Buddhist Art by Edo Period Princess-Nuns," will be followed by a concert
of Western and Japanese vocal and instrumental music presented as an
offertory (kenkyoku) to honor the memory of the eleven royal
princess-nun artists who are the focus of this event. The program will
include works composed by the 17th-century Italian nun, Isabella
Leonarda (1620-1704), who lived during the same years as the Japanese
nuns - - an offering from Western nun to Japanese nuns who shared life
on our earth at the same time. There will also be koto music that would
have been familiar to the Japanese princess-nuns, as well as a
USA-premier of a modern work for voice and koto that incorporates waka
poetry well-known to the princess-nuns from the card game played in both
court and convent, based on "One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets"
(Haykunin Isshu).

The program will conclude with the virtuoso biwa artist Nakamura Kakujo,
who will perform a biwa-accompanied canticle based on the terrible
12th-century battles that destroyed the Heike clan and led to the
tonsure of the empress, offered as a lament against war and a prayer for
peace that transcends nations and centuries.

These celebrations reflect the Institute's long-term efforts to bring to
light the sorely neglected history of the many women who, over the
centuries, made major contributions to Japanese cultural matters. It
highlights as well the Institute's continuing efforts to bring
traditional Japanese music and musical instruments into the mainstream
world of 21st-century music.

These events, which are free and open to the public, will take place
from 5:00pm through 7:00pm on October 29, 2003 in the Rotunda of Low
Memorial Library, Columbia University, at Broadway and 116th Street.
Please come and join us.

Behind all these events lies the philosophy that moves all the
Institute's activities: a belief that the touchstone of history can
provide perspective and remedy to present-day dilemmas; that keeping in
touch with the legacy of forebears inspires us, in the words of Abbess
Mugai Nyodai, "to polish our own hearts."

We will be grateful if you consider supporting our work. For details
contact:

Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies
509 Kent Hall, MC 3906
Columbia University
New York, NY 10027
Phone: (212) 854-7403
Fax: (212) 854-1470
Email: medievalja...@...umbia.edu
Website: www.columbia.edu/cu/ealac/imjs



Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 17:13:24 +0900

From: Robert Juhl <bart...@....com>

Subject: Question on Parallelism as a Literary Device


Hello PMJSers:

An 11th century writer I am working on (Kokei, 皇慶, author of the Enoshima Engi, 江嶋縁起) makes extensive use of parallels between the larger world outside Japan and a smaller world within Japan centered on Enoshima.

For example, he draws an explicit parallel between the five peaks/terraces of Wutaishan (五臺山; Godaizan in Japanese) in China and the three peaks/terraces of Enoshima. There also are parallels between Manjusri at Wutaishan and Benzaiten at Enoshima, the dragons in various lakes in China and the dragon of the lake near Enoshima, the Sarasvati in India and the flooding lake/river/ponds near Enoshima, and so on.

My question: Is the use of such parallels between the wider world outside of Japan and a smaller world within Japan a recognized literary device in Japanese literature? And if so, what authors are notable for its use?

Not being a student of literature myself, I hope that some of the scholars here can help me on this question.

TIA, Robert Juhl
---------------------------------------

Visit my website on the Enoshima Engi at http://www2.gol.com/users/bartraj/goddessindex-1.html



Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 21:54:03 +0900

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

Subject: Japanese Studies Library Position


JAPANESE STUDIES LIBRARIAN
Position #218
(Librarian/Information Services Professional)

East Asian Library
Information Services Division
University of Southern California

POSITION SUMMARY

The University of Southern California is seeking an experienced and innovative librarian/subject specialist to build and promote a strong Japanese research and teaching collection. The successful candidate will join the staff of the East Asian Library (four librarians and 4.5 staff positions), providing service to faculty and students from all departments and schools engaged in the use of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean language materials, as constituted in the East Asian Studies Center.

Reporting to the Head of the East Asian Library, the Japanese Studies Librarian has the primary responsibility for the curatorial development, cataloging, and management of the Japanese Collection, and for instruction and reference in Japanese studies. The Japanese Collection is intended to be a well-rounded collection, corresponding to the wide range of research interests at the University, but a particular focus for development will be materials in support of the study of pre-modern Japan.

Established as a library unit in 1989, the development of the East Asian Library has taken on particular momentum since moving into its own freestanding building in 1999. It is a dynamic library setting, well suited to an enterprising scholar-librarian. In 2000, the East Asian Library administratively joined the Information Service Division's Specialized Libraries and Collections (SLAC), which encompasses Rare Books and Manuscripts, Regional History, University Archives, as well as several other specialized collections. Additional information about the East Asian Library is available at http://www.usc.edu/isd/archives/arc/libraries/eastasian/

East Asian studies in Southern California date from 1911, when USC opened a department of Oriental Studies and Comparative Literature, but the decision to develop a nationally prominent research capability in the area of early Japanese history and culture is a very recent turn. The successful candidate will have the charge to build a collection, in all formats, equal to these ambitions.

THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Founded in 1879, USC is an international center of learning, enrolling more than 30,000 FTE undergraduate, graduate, and professional students on the University Park and the Health Sciences campuses and offering degrees through its College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, Graduate School and 16 professional schools. It ranks in the top 10 among private research universities in the United States in federally funded research and in voluntary support. USC is one of only four private research universities in the western United States elected to membership in the Association of American Universities, a group that represents the top one percent of the nation's accredited universities and which accounts for nearly two-thirds of all federally sponsored research.

INFORMATION SERVICES DIVISION

The University Libraries are an integral part of USC's Information Services Division (ISD), a unified organization with the explicit goal of providing the highest quality and fully integrated computer, telephone, and research services. To accomplish its goal, the ISD is structured into three primary components: Resources and Services (which includes the East Asian Library), Information Infrastructure Core, and the Center for Scholarly Technology, with central support units in Administrative Services, Operations, and Advancement.

USC's libraries house, in Doheny Memorial Library and twelve specialized subject libraries, collections of more than 3,000,000 volumes, over 5,000,000 microforms, 3,000,000 photographs, nearly 44,000 linear feet of manuscripts and archives, and subscribe to over 120 electronic databases and more than 14,000 journals in print and electronic formats. Annually, reference transactions number close to 50,000 and approximately 1,100 instructional presentations are made to 16,000 participants.

USC is a member of the Association of Research Libraries, the Center for Research Libraries, the Research Libraries Group, the National Digital Library Federation, the Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium and the Greater Western Library Alliance. Additional information about the University of Southern California and the Information Services Division can be obtained at http://www.usc.edu and at http://www.usc.edu/isd.

To support USC's exciting new initiatives, ISD recently embarked upon an extensive faculty-led strategic planning process that has resulted in the division's adoption of "Six Information Pathways to Excellence." Five new teams "Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences, Science and Engineering, Undergraduate Learning, and Specialized Libraries and Archival Collections" will be formed. These will support and further the first Information Pathway, which calls for providing "Seamless Access to a User-Driven Collection of Print and Electronic Resources," and the second, which looks to establish "Interdisciplinary Centers for Educational and Research Excellence" within the university libraries.

Information on each of USC's libraries is available at:

http://www.usc.edu/academics/libraries_computing/library_list/.

EXPERIENCE AND QUALIFICATIONS

The successful candidate will have a strong commitment to meeting the needs of the University's scholarly community; a strong customer service orientation; an ability to interact effectively with students, faculty, and staff from diverse cultural backgrounds; an ability to manage multiple priorities and meet deadlines in a frequently ambiguous, changing environment; and a willingness to take risks in approaching solutions.

Required: Graduate degree in library science from an ALA-accredited institution or equivalent combination of relevant advanced degree and library experience; experience in an academic or research library; strong command of the Japanese language, both written and spoken; excellent oral and written communication skills.

Desirable: Advanced degree in pre-modern Japanese studies; experience in cataloging, including knowledge of AACR2, LCC, LCSH, and RLIN or OCLC/MARC tagging; knowledge of Japanese librarianship; demonstrated experience in collection development; familiarity with Japanese book trade and vendors; willingness to personally negotiate purchases from booksellers and publishers; experience in writing grant proposals; demonstrated ability to work closely with faculty, in support of their research and instructional needs; knowledge of the application of current information retrieval and other technologies to library services; web-authoring skills

APPOINTMENT RANK/SALARY

Librarian II (minimum salary $45,000) or Librarian III; appointment rank and salary commensurate with experience and qualifications.

Librarians at USC have faculty status, with the option for appointment on either the Continuing Appointment track or the renewable Contract Status track. Appointment to the Continuing Appointment track requires the potential to meet the University's requirements for the granting of continuing appointment, which in turn requires demonstrated excellence in librarianship, substantive and continuing contributions to the profession and in university and community service. Appointment to the renewable Contract Status track requires the potential to demonstrate excellence in librarianship and effectiveness in meeting contract standards and provisions.

BENEFITS

The position is full-time on a 12-month contract. Benefits include a choice of university sponsored retirement programs, 22 paid vacation days per year, a choice of medical and dental plans, and tuition assistance.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE

Candidates should submit a letter of application, full resume (including telephone and email address), and the names, addresses, telephone numbers, and email addresses of six (6) references to:

Nannette Edelman (edel...@....edu), Coordinator
Search Committee
ATTN: #218
Information Services Division
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0182

Review of applications will being mid-November 2003 and continue until the position is filled. For more information about this position please contact Kenneth Klein, Head, East Asian Library at kkl...@....edu

USC is an EO/AA employer.

Rev. 9/29/03



Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 23:50:22 -0700

From: Robert Borgen <rbor...@...avis.edu>

Subject: Re: Question on Parallelism as a Literary Device


Although not a "literary" source, Tonomine Ryakki, a history of that holy mountain compiled 1197, cites an earlier work in which Kamatari is said to have commented "The gods dwell in the holy grotto at Tonomine. How could it differ from Wutai in the Great Tang? If I am buried there, my descendents will surely achieve high rank!" He was buried at Tonomine, and we all know what became of his descendants.

Robert Borgen



Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2003 09:16:13 +0100

From: Richard Bowring <rb...@...mes.cam.ac.uk>

Subject: Re: Question on Parallelism as a Literary Device


I think you will need to distinguish periods and contexts carefully here.
You will find a number of Heian monogatari where people, events or places in
China are referred to, sometimes to point up a parallel and sometimes to
enlarge the significance of what is being presented. Murasaki Shikibu does
this in the early parts of the Genji (ref. to Yang Guifei etc), for example.
In the Edo period this cross referencing became a major literary and
artistic technique and its significance was of a different order. In your
period, the context is that of 'proving' that Japan was the origin and China
the trace. The religious significance (probably) overrides the 'literary
device'.
Richard Bowring
Cambridge



Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2003 12:41:09 +0200

From: Mark Teeuwen <m.j.teeu...@...t.uio.no>

Subject: Re: Question on Parallelism as a Literary Device


A first thing to check is whether this engi really dates back to the
days of Kokei. I read that Benzaiten was "invited" (kanjoo) to
Enoshima on orders of Minamoto no Yoritomo in 1182... I don't know
much about Enoshima, but as founder of the Tani school Kokei was a
favourite name to put on apocryphical texts.

Whether Kokei is the author or not, as Richard Bowring suggests, I
wouldn't see this as a literary device but as a fairly common way of
enhancing the sanctity of a cultic place. Similar examples are the
association of Kasuga with the Deer Park, Hieizan with Vulture Peak,
Ise with the palace of Brahma, etc etc.

Mark Teeuwen



Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2003 08:15:36 -0500

From: "Brian Ruppert" <rupp...@...c.edu>

Subject: Re: Question on Parallelism as a Literary Device


I would agree with Mark and Richard on the points they have made, and just
elaborate a bit on a few issues in this connection.

As they've noted, a careful historical and contextualized treatment of the
problem is warranted. My initial impression is that re-locations of places
and often religious figures begin to become prominent by as early as the
10th century; for example, you might want to note in the context of your
study that there is an extensive literature within Shingon traditions
arguing that the dragon king in the pond of the imperial pleasure garden
Shinzen'en (Shinsen'en) was originally a dragon king who provided water for
the world in Anavatapta pond in the Himalayas, an argument that begins as
early as the writing of the so-called 25-article Last Testament of Kukai in
(from what we know) the mid-10th c. For more information, albeit with
concerns different from yours, see my "Buddhist Rainmaking in Early Japan:
The Dragon King and the Ritual Careers of Esoteric Monks" (History of
Religions 42.2, Nov. 2002: 143-74; esp. section on dragon king in
literature). This discourse is picked up through the hagiographies of Kukai
from that point on.

As for the connection with Enoshima, I don't recall whether there is a
direct connection made with the Shingon tradition, although it was
undoubtedly known. (I sense that it may have been Tendai esoteric texts such
as Keiran Shuuyou Shuu, 14th c., that start to talk prominently about
Enoshima, although I don't know if they compare the characteristics of the
place or dragon there with the continent.) As for Kokei, I have to wonder
too about the provenence of this text, although I haven't investigated this;
Kokei has been important for a variety of reasons, and there are indeed a
lot of early unpublished documents of temples such as the cloister Shoren'in
that, while still unexamined in Japan, would seem to beg for a closer
examination (if even a Japanese scholar could get permission to publish
about them! They're voluminous!), given that they seem to date from roughly
his era or soon thereafter. And while apocryphal texts do commonly occur
later, it may be that accretions have been made to an earlier text (this
calls, I would guess, for further investigation).

Good luck,

Brian

Brian Ruppert

University of Illinois



Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2003 15:54:45 -0700

From: Noel John Pinnington <no...@...rizona.edu>

Subject: Re: Question on Parallelism as a Literary Device


I imagine that literary practices did play some role in preparing the way
for assertions by religious authors of parallels between sacred sites inside
and outside Japan.
Just to take one set of continuities, we start with the experience of
expressing the same content, albeit dressed in different cultural clothes,
in different languages (i.e. Kojiki, Nihonshoki). We then have the long
tradition of re-presenting elements of Chinese literature in Japanese guise,
as for example in kudai waka. Such literary practices developed, in the 11th
century, into the pastime of groups of aristocratic poets routinely
re-reading the Japanese landscape through Chinese poetry (thus Renzen
travelling in western Japan lifted his imagery for his travel poems from
T'ang poetry). Smits (in the Pursuit of Loneliness) tells how, when visiting
temples in the mountains, groups of poets acted out scenes read about in
Chinese temple-visiting poetry, and alluded to such poems in the Japanese
and Chinese poems they wrote on such occasions. These kind of literary
traditions might have fed into the idea of geographical as well as other
parallelism, that was taken up by religious authors. Of course the
metaphysical basis for such parallelism is probably to be found in the
hon-shaku and other polarities found in religious tradition.

Just thinking about this question, however, I find myself recalling the
geographical parallelisms constructed within Japan itself. There is the case
of Shiogama constructed in Minamoto no Tooru's garden, and in Heike, we have
the story of the search of the exiles on Kikai-ga-shima for areas resembling
Kumano, so that they could convert them into versions of the Kumano shrine
to pray for the end of their exile. I wonder how much branch shrines in
general were thought only appropriately sited in locations topologically
similar to the main shrine. Surely it doesn't all go back to Kokinshu-style
"elegant confusion"!

Noel Pinnington



Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2003 19:55:00 -0400

From: "Kenneth J. Bryson" <duckho...@...dspring.com>

Subject: Re: Question on Parallelism as a Literary Device


I believe the concept of "mitate" applies here, whether or not explicit in
the individual texts referred to. It seems to be a recurring device in
Japanese literature as in Japanese art, from the sublime comparisons in
classical poetry to the farcical parodies abundant in gesaku.

Kenneth J. Bryson


Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 10:08:03 +0900

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

Subject: new members


We welcome new members Kenneth J. Bryson, Kristina Buhrman, and Hilofumi Yamamoto, as well a number of "read only" subscribers.

Kenneth J. Bryson <duckho...@...dspring.com>
A lifelong pursuit of interests in Japanese literature, art, and history and a chance encounter at a dinner in Atlanta resulted in my entering and receiving the grand prize in the English division of the Shizuoka Fifth International Translation competition in 2003. Unlike some of the previous grand prize recipients, I was unable to take advantage of the year's scholarship to study in Japan that comes with it; but the privilege of meeting the previous competition winners as well as the distinguished judges - including Donald Keene and Janine Beichman - and literary lights like Ogino Anna and Ooka Makoto has proved an inspiration to me. Despite my lack of academic credentials,I am looking forward to future challenges in the field of Japanese translation as the appropriate opportunities arise.

Kristina Buhrman <buhr...@....edu>
Ph.D student in the Department of History, University of Southern California, focusing on pre-modern Japan.

Hilofumi Yamamoto <hirofumi.yamam...@....edu.au>
PhD student at Japan Centre, Australian National University.

Changes of affiliation / address

S. Lyle Parker < rnt...@...dion.ne.jp>
Ph.D candidate, Philosophy Department, Gakushuin University.

Chris Callahan <ctc2...@...umbia.edu>
Columbia University


Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 10:15:49 -0400

From: David Pollack <poll...@...l.rochester.edu>

Subject: query


The special character is of course read "shime," but I've never known what to call the jagged character that appears at the start of lines of sung/recited text -- something I assume everyone else knows. Drawing it in the air while saying "chonchon" is starting to seem inadequate. Annoyingly enough, I can't even insert the symbol here since it's one of several "special characters" in the "character palette" of my Japanese software that require unicode to show up, but I'm sure everyone knows the symbol I'm talking about?

David Pollack



Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 23:40:23 +0900

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

Subject: Re: query


In printed noh texts, three similar symbols are used, one like kana "he" but with the downward stroke extended and at a steeper angle, the others with either two or three waves on the upward stroke. These are used respectively to indicate (1) "hyoushi awazu" (non-congruent rhythm), (2) "hyoushi au" (congruent rhythm) in hira-nori and chuu-nori sections, and (3) "hyoushi au" in oonori sections. See hanrei of the ShinTaikei _Youkyoku Hyakuban_, SNKT 57: 5.

No names are given for the characters in Youkyoku Hyakuban, but I think I have located the second (? or third) in a Unicode chart of special CJK (Chinese-Japanese-Korean) symbols:

Symbol 303D in
http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U3000.pdf

I would also be interested in knowing what the symbols are called.

Michael Watson



Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 12:48:53 -0400

From: David Pollack <poll...@...l.rochester.edu>

Subject: Re: query


Yes, that's the one, also like but with an added jiggle on top. Your unicode definition says:
"303D PART ALTERNATION MARK
marks the start of a song part in Japanese"

(Again in this copied and pasted passage the symbol fails to reproduce except as the random substitution )

I'd gathered this is what it meant since it always occurs at the start of sung sections of text, so I assumed that those who practice some form of utai would know what to call the thing. I thought it might even be read as "utai" or "katari" because of the contrast with "kotoba" in the pertinent definition of that term: : 謡い物語り物 で、ふしのつかない部分.

But while the symbol for "shime" shows up in any dictionary, I find no symbol used for "utai" or "katari."

David Pollack



Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 18:34:13 -0400

From: Lawrence E Marceau <lmarc...@...l.Edu>

Subject: Re: query


The symbol used to depict music lyrics and/or poems in a prose text is
called "ioriten" (庵点). A helpful description of the symbol and its
usage, written by Tom Gally of the Japanese-English Dictionary Project
(jeKai) is found at the link below.

http://www.jekai.org/entries/aa/00/np/aa00np28.htm

Lawrence M.



Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 20:07:20 -0400

From: David Pollack <poll...@...l.rochester.edu>

Subject: Re: query


Larry,

Reading the info on the website, I was intrigued at the definitive statement that the symbol is called 庵点 though an informal survey of people in the publishing industry shows that none had ever heard that word before. A google of 庵点 brings up a page that suggests other descriptive terms for the symbol as well such as "shoulder marks" ( , kataten?) and "hanging marks" (懸点, kakariten?).

Perhaps, as your web source suggests, 唄符号 is after all the easiest and most logical term.

Many thanks,
David Pollack



Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 00:26:59 -0700

From: Cynthea Bogel <cjbo...@...ashington.edu>

Subject: oldest kami statue found today in Izumo, Shimane Pref.


http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20031014-00000046-kyodo-ent

A 13.5 cm. wooden statue of a seated male figure, a Shinzou, was found in
Izumo.
It dates to between the late Nara to early Heian periods, making it the
earliest such figure known.

Cynthea Bogel
University of Washington



Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 11:48:55 +0900

From: "Peter McMillan" <ai...@...kcity.ne.jp>

Subject: Takuan


I am writing a paper on Takuan and a set of seven kanshi that he wrote to
celebrate the New Year. The idea comes from the Chinese koyomi whereby there
is a poem each of the first seven days on a different domestic animal and
one for man. I was wondering if any members are familiar with other such
works by Takuan or could give me any advice about good places to start doing
research. Also if members have any ideas about authentication of
calligraphic works I would be most grateful.

Many thanks

Peter McMillan



Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 12:22:31 +0900

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

Subject: The Noh Ominameshi


The following announcement from the Cornell East Asia Series should be of interest to many of this list.

The Cornell East Asia Series is pleased to announce the publication of a new book, No. 118 in our series:

THE NOH OMINAMESHI: A FLOWER VIEWED FROM MANY DIRECTIONS, edited by Mae J. Smethurst, Co-edited by Christina Laffin.
An important contribution to the study of noh, this volume includes essays by scholars from both sides of the Pacific Ocean in their respective languages (Japanese and English). Japanese scholars Amano Fumio, Nishino Haruo, Takemoto Mikio, and Wakita Haruko join with actor Uzawa Hisa and American scholars Monica Bethe, Steven Brown, Susan Klein, William LaFleur, Susan Matisoff, Carolyn Morley, Mae Smethurst, and Arthur Thornhill to interpret the noh OMINAMESHI all from their own analytical approaches. The volume includes two translations of the noh accompanied by the Japanese texts and interpretations, plus 19 color and 4 black-and-white illustrations.
Mae J. Smethurst is Professor of Classics and East Asian Languages and Literature at the University of Pittsburgh. Her books include DRAMATIC REPRESENTATIONS OF FILIAL PIETY: FIVE NOH IN TRANSLATION (also available from the Cornell East Asia Series).
CEAS No. 118 2003, 362 p., 1-885445-18-0, $27 paperback.

To place an order or for more information on this and other CEAS titles, please visit our secure on-line bookstore at http://www.einaudi.cornell.edu/eastasia/CEASbooks/item.asp?id=1050 or call 607-255-8038, or write to c...@...nell.edu. You may also order by writing to the Cornell East Asia Series Distribution Center, 369 Pine Tree Road, Ithaca NY 14853. We accept checks, Mastercard, Visa and Discover. Shipping costs for one copy are $3 for domestic Media Mail or $5 for UPS Ground service. (Add $0.75 for each additional copy.) Please call for international rates.

Evangeline Ray, Editorial Assistant, CEAS
140 Uris Hall, Ithaca NY 14853
Phone: 607-255-5071/Fax: 607-255-1388
http://www.einaudi.cornell.edu/eastasia/CEASbooks




Date: 2003.Oct.22 01:21:58 Asia/Tokyo

From: esekine <esek...@...izon.net>

Subject: Ajls conference program


Dear Netters,

Our aplogy for cross listing. This is the second and last announcement of
the AJLS Annual Meeting to be held at UCLA on November 21-23, 2003.

An electronic formatted copy of our Newsletter that include the conference
program is available on our website: http://www.sla.purdue.edu/fll/AJLS/

Eiji sekine
--------------------------------------------------------------

Twelfth Annual Meeting Program
Hermeneutical Strategies: Methods of Interpretation in the Study of Japanese
Literature

November 21-23, 2003

University of California, Los Angeles, Royce Hall 314

Organizer: Michael F. Marra

Sponsors:
The Japan Foundation, Toshiba International Foundation, UCLA Center for
Japanese Studies

The University of California, Los Angeles, will be hosting this years
Annual Meeting of the Association for Japanese Literary Studies. The
conference will be held from November 21-23, 2003 at UCLA. In this
conference presenters will analyze the nature of their daily critical
endeavors, and will discuss issues related to the hermeneutical paths (past,
present, and future) that have been, are, and will be guiding us in the
discussion and interpretation of Japans literary texts. Fifteen panels of
presentations (our largest ever), together with four keynote addresses by
Professors Fujita Masakatsu, Matsumura Yuji, William R. LaFleur, and Muroi
Hisashi, will examine a variety of hermeneutical issues.

Friday, November 21, 2003

8:00-8:30
Registration/Coffee and Pastries

8:30-8:45
Welcoming Remarks by Michael F. Marra

8:45-10:20
Panel 1--Feminist Theories, 1

The Maternal Body as the Site of Ideological Contest: A Feminist Reading of
Hirabayashi Taiko, -- Linda Flores, University of California, Los Angeles.

--The Rhetoric of Misogyny: Women Who 'Hate' Women and Other Feminist
Problems in the Literature of Takahashi Takako, -- Julia Bullock, Stanford
University.

--Japanese Female Writers Watch a Boy Being Beaten by His Father: Female
Fantasy of Male Homosexuality, Psychoanalysis, and Sexuality, -- Kazumi
Nagaike, University of British Columbia.

Discussant: Rebecca Copeland, Washington University in St. Louis.

10:20-11:35
Panel 2--Feminist Theories, 2

--Hirabayashi Taiko and the Future of Feminism, -- Marilyn Bolles, Montana
State University-Bozeman.

--Outing Miyamoto Yuriko: The Hermeneutics of Sexual Identity, -- Sarah Pradt,
Macalester College.

--How Housewives Shatter a Narrative: Tawada Yoko's The Bridegroom was a
Dog, -- Robin Tierney, University of Iowa.

11:35-12:50
Panel 3--Postcolonial Theories

--Issues of Postcolonial Theories in Zainichi Literature, -- Yoshiko Matsuura,
Purdue University.

--Zainichi Literature Through a Lacanian Gaze: The Case of Yi Yang Ji's
Yuhi, -- Catherine Ryu, Michigan State University.

--Debating War Responsibility in Postwar Japanese Film Discourse, -- Michael
Baskett, University of Oregon.

12:50-2:00 Lunch

2:00-3:15
Panel 4--Voices from the "Ikyo" (Foreign Space)

--Shojo and Yamanba in Mori Mari's Literature, -- Hiromi Tsuchiya Dollase,
Vassar College.

--A Female Modernist in Chaos (Gendered Place): Osaki Midori's Dainana Kankai
Hoko (Wandering Around the Seven Sensuous Worlds), -- Eguro Kiyomi, Josai
International University.

--Shinjuku as "Ikyo"-: Hideo Levy's Seijouki no Kikoenai Heya (The Room in
which the Sound of American Flag Cannot Be Heard), Sato Koji, Josai
International University.

3:15-4:50
Panel 5--Literary Interpretation and the Crises of Modernity: Cultural
Criticism in Early Showa

--I Am A Revolutionary Cat: Proletarian Literature and Natsume Soseki,--
Michael Bourdaghs, University of California, Los Angeles.

--The Fiction and Criticism of Sakaguchi Ango: The Rhetoric of Ambivalence,--
Oshino Takeshi, Hokkaido University.

--"Irony" and Subjectivity in the Essays of Yasuda Yojuro-- Nosaka Akio, Oita
Prefectural College of Arts & Culture.

Discussant: Miriam Silverberg, University of California, Los Angeles.

4:50-6:05
Panel 6--Cultural Criticism in Early Showa, 2

--Shinseinen, the Contract and Vernacular Modernism, -- Kyoko Omori, Hamilton
College.

--Miyazawa Kenji and the Ethics of Scientific Realism, -- Gregory Golley,
University of Chicago.

--The Problem of Aesthetics in Nishida Kitaro, -- Matteo Cestari, University of
Turin.

6:05-6:35
Keynote Speaker
Fujita Masakatsu, University of Kyoto,
"Nishida Kitaro's Philosophy and Japanese Language" (in Japanese)

7:00-9:00 Dinner

Saturday, November 22, 2003

8:00-8:30 Coffee and Pastries

8:30-9:45
Panel 7--The Author, Intertextuality, and Narratology

--"What if the Author was Never God?: Some Thoughts on Kawabata, texts and
Criticism,"-- Matthew Mizenko, Ursinus College.

--"The Author, the Reader, and Japanese Literary Texts: Returning
Poststructuralist Intertextuality to its Dialogic Roots,"-- Timothy J. Van
Compernolle, College of William and Mary.

--"Materializing Narratology: The Case of Kanai Mieko,"-- Atsuko Sakaki,
University of Toronto.

9:45-11:00

Panel 8--Wa-kan Dialectic and the Field of Poetics

--"Prefaces as Sino-Japanese Interfaces: Towards an Intracultural Poetics of
Early Japanese Literature,"-- Wiebke Denecke, Harvard University.

--"Pictured Landscapes: Heian Gardens and Poetic Imagination,"-- Ivo Smits,
Leiden University.

--"Beyond Wa-kan: In Search of Sharper Tools for Narrating Reception,"--Jason
P. Webb, Princeton University.

11:00-12:35
Panel 9--Re-Interpreting the Classics

--"Beyond Our Grasp? Materiality, Meta-genre and Meaning in the Po(e)ttery of
Rengetsu-ni,"--Sayumi Takahashi, University of Pennsylvania.

--"Heteronormativity and the Politics of the Writing Subject: Zeami and the
Legitimation of Popular Literature,"--Joe Parker, Pitzer College.

--"Staging the Spectacular: Kabuki, Shunga, and the Semiotics of Excess,--h
David Pollack, University of Rochester.

--"The Role of Heian Intertexts in the Recuperation of Lyrical Acuity in
Tawara Machi's Late Capitalist Tanka,"--Dean Brink, Saint Martin's College.

12:35-1:45 Lunch

1:45-2:15
Keynote Speaker
Matsumura Yuji, Kokubungaku Kenkyu Shiryokan (National Institute of Japanese
Literature), "The Position ofAllusive Variation: Between Plagiarism and Originality)"
(in Japanese)

2:15-3:50
Panel 10--Strategies in Reading Tropes: The Hermeneutics of Medieval
Language and Poetry

--"Excluded Middles: Grammar vs. Rhetoric vs. Esthetic in the Medieval
Hermeneutics of Canonical Waka,"--Lewis Cook, Queens College, CUNY.

--"Whether Birds or Monkeys: Names, Reference and the Interpretation of Waka,"
--Gian Piero Persiani, Columbia University.

--"Dramatizing Figures: the Revitalization and Expansion of Metaphors in No,"
--Akiko Takeuchi, Columbia University.

Discussant: Haruo Shirane, Columbia University.

3:50-5:25
Panel 11--Literature on Literature: Hermeneutical Subtexts in Anthologies
and Fiction

--"Compilation as Commentary: The Two Imperial Anthologies of Nijo Tameyo,"
--Stefania Burk, University of Virginia.

--"Little Atsumori and The Tale of The Heike: Fiction as Commentary, and the
Significance of a Name,"
--R. Keller Kimbrough, Colby College.

--"Genji Goes to China: The Tale of Hamamatsu and Murasaki's Substitutes,
--Charo D'Etcheverry, University of Wisconsin.

Discussant: H. Richard Okada, Princeton University.

5:25-7:00
Panel 12--Constructing the Alternative Text: Commentaries in Late Medieval
and Early Modern Japan.

--"Accessorizing the Text: The Role of Commentary in the Creation of Readers,
--Linda H. Chance, University of Pennsylvania.

--"The Context and Structure of Neo-Confucian Commentary: The Case of Minagawa
Kien,"--W. J. Boot, Leiden University.

--"In Search of the Absolute Origin: Ogyu Sorai (1666-1728) or the Shadow of
the Ancients,"--Aiko Okamoto MacPhail, Indiana University.

Discussant: Mark Meli, Kansai University.

7:00-7:30
Keynote Speaker
William R. LaFleur, University of Pennsylvania,
--"Good Karma, Bad Karma, Words, and Deeds"--

8:00-10:00 Dinner (hosted by Fred G. Notehelfer, Director, UCLA Center for
Japanese Studies)

Sunday, November 23, 2003

8:00-8:30 Coffee and Pastries

8:30-10:05
Panel 13--How to Discuss Artistic Inspiration: New Methodologies on Studying
Modern Japan

--"The Uses and Abuses of History for Buto-writing: The Literary Activities of
Hijikata Tatsumi,"--Bruce Baird, University of Pennsylvania.

--"Japanese Detective Fiction and the Question of Authenticity: Discussing
Intercultural Influences,"--Sari Kawana, University of Pennsylvania.

--"Writing the Political not Just the Personal in Tamura's Showa Period
Fiction,"--Anne Sokolsky, University of Southern California.

Discussant: Alan Tansman, University of California, Berkeley.

10:05-10:35
Keynote Speaker
Muroi Hisashi, Yokohama National University,
--"Problems of Interpretation in the Age of Database"--

10:35-11:30
Panel 14--The Ins and Outs of Publishing: Plumbing Archives for Japanese
Literary Histories

--"In Search of the Japanese Novel in Nineteenth-Century America: Book History
and the New Literary Hermeneutics,"--Jonathan Zwicker, University of
Michigan.

--"Archiving the Forbidden: War Responsibilities and Censored Literature,"--
Jonathan Abel, Princeton University.

11:30-12:45
Panel 15--Art and Psychoanalysis

--"The Historical Horizons of True Art: Kafu and Okakura at the 1904 St. Louis
World's Fair,"--Miya Lippit, Getty Center.

--"Psyche as Soma: Four Modern Japanese Texts,"--Andra Alvis, Indiana
University.

--"Konaka's Mirror Stage: Alice, Anime, and the End of Psychoanalysis,"
--Margherita Long, University of California, Riverside.

12:45

Closing Remarks by Michael F. Marra

............................................................................

-- REGISTRATION: Pre-Registration form is required to be mailed to the UCLA
conference office. For details, see the attached registration form.

-- LODGINGS: A block of rooms are held at the Holiday Inn, 170 N. Church
Lane, Los Angeles, CA 90094
Tel. (310) 476-6411
Fax: (310) 472-1157
Email: salesi...@...rentwood.com
Web site: www.holiday-inn.com/brentwood-bel.

Single and double rooms are $95.00. You need to identify yourselves as being
with the UCLA group of the Association for Japanese Literary Studies. The
cut-off date for reservations is October 30, 2003.

-- TRANSPORTATION, AND OTHER INQUIRIES: Visit the conference website:
http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/ealc/ajls or contact Professor Michael F.
Marra, Conference Chair, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures,
290 Royce Hall 154003, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1540; ma...@...net.ucla.edu;
Tel: (310) 794-8941; Fax: (310) 825-8808.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
AJLS 2003 Registration Form
Pre-registration by Monday, November 10, 2003

Name___________________________________

Address____________________________________

City_______________________State_________

Phone/FAX______________________________

Email___________________________________

Affiliation_____________________________________

Registration Fees:
Speakers ( ) (free) (includes registration, lunch and dinner on
November 21 and 22).
Audience ( ) ($35) (includes registration and lunch on November 21
and 22).

Please enclose a check payable to UC Regents
by Monday, November 10, 2003

Please indicate which meals you will need. All meals are provided free to
pre-registered attendees:
Friday lunch ( );
Friday dinner ( ) (for speakers and discussants); ;
Saturday lunch ( );
Saturday dinner ( ) (for speakers and discussants); .
Please indicate any dietary restrictions:___________________________________

Mail form and check to:
Nicole Chan, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, 290 Royce
Hall, UCLA, Box 911540, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1540



Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 09:08:16 +0200

From: "Antony Boussemart" <aboussem...@...o.fr>

Subject: Fw: Kyoto Lectures 2003-October


Dear PMJS members,

For anyone who might be in Kyoto at that time, this is a conference not to be missed.

Yours,

Antony Boussemart

Scuola Italiana di Studi sull'Asia Orientale ISEAS
Ecole Francaise d'Extreme-Orient EFEO

KYOTO LECTURES 2003

Friday October 31st 18:00 p.m.

Franciscus Verellen will speak on:

Healing and Redemption in Early Taoism:
The Way of the Heavenly Master

Heavenly Master ritual aimed at "gacquitting" the victims of "indictments" in the form of death, disease, or misfortune. Such indictments were regarded as retribution for sin or taboo violations, or signaled implication in the grievances of the unredeemed dead. In the ritual petitions presented in this talk, dating from the second to the tenth century, the redemption of the dead is primarily a means for healing the living.

Franciscus Verellen is a professor at the Ecole Franraise d'Extreme-Orient. He is currently based in Hong Kong where he directs the EFEO center and teaches in the Chinese University. After doctoral studies at Oxford and Paris, Verellen taught at Columbia University and the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, and held visiting appointments at Princeton and Berkeley. His main publications are in the field of medieval Taoism. With Kristofer Schipper he is co-editor of The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang (University of Chicago Press, 3 vols., forthcoming)



Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 14:28:29 -0700

From: Michelle I Li <mi...@...nford.edu>

Subject: ojoden


Hello Everyone,
In preparing to teach a course on Buddhist tale literature this winter, I
find myself wondering about Frederic J. Kotas, the author of a dissertation
on oojooden (accounts of rebirth in the Pure Land). I'm almost certain that
he never turned his dissertation into a book, but I want to double check.
(I hope he did.) Is there a book on oojooden by him? Also, is Dr. Kotas
teaching somewhere? (I was unable to find out through the internet).
Thanks,
Michelle Li

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 09:04:52 -0400
From: Amy Heinrich <heinr...@...umbia.edu>
Subject: Re: ojoden

Dr. Fred Kotas is the Japanese Studies Librarian at Cornell University,
where you will be able to find his contact information.

/amy heinrich
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 14:19:53 -0400
From: Aileen Gatten <agat...@...ch.edu>
Subject: Re: ojoden

Hi Michelle,
Yes, it would be lovely to have a book or two in English on oujouden, but for the time being there are a couple of dissertations (including Fred Kotas'):

Peter M. Wetzler, "Yoshishige no Yasutane: Lineage, Learning, Office and Amida's Pure Land," diss. Univ. of California, Berkeley, 1977 (complete translation of "Nihon ojo gokurakuki"); Frederic J. Kotas, "Ojoden: Accounts of Rebirth in the Pure Land," diss. Univ. of Washington, 1987.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 15:04:37 +0200
From: schaefer.i...@...enet.de
Subject: Poem by Jimon

Dear PMJS members,
I am reading the essay "The social mission of art" (Wenyi zhi shehui de shiming) written in 1923 by the Chinese writer Guo Moruo mentioning a young Japanese nun named Jimon who succeeds in driving away robbers in the monastery by citing a poem. This poem is given in Romanization and in a Chinese translation. Here is Guos romanization:
"Yashikaki mo moto wa Nahiwa [Naniwa, I suppose] no/ Ashi nareba
/Kosu mo kotowari nari/ Yoru no shiranami"
Translation given by Guo (rendered by me in English): "Because the reed of the fence has grown in
Naniwa, the white crests come over at night". Guo explains that "shiranami" also denotes "robber" in Japanese. I could not find the poem yet. Has anybody an idea where I could find that poem? Is it so popular
that I should know it?
Best regards
Ingo Schaefer
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 15:38:07 +0100
From: Richard Bowring <rb...@...mes.cam.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Poem by Jimon

Someone else will probably have the reference but the poem itself relies on
a series of wordplays on Naniha 'what' and 'Naniwa', ashi 'feet' and
'reeds', kotowari 'deny' and 'natural', and shiranami 'white waves' and
'robber/burglar'. Here is a first try:

What is that (Naniha) at the base of the fence? Since they are feet, I
refuse to allow them to cross over: burglar in the night/since they are the
reeds at Naniwa it is only natural that they rise: white waves at night.

The beginning of the romanization is a bit of a puzzle. 'mo' should probably
be 'no'. The 'yashi' in 'yashikaki' also looks like a mistake.

I hope this helps a little.

Richard Bowring
Cambridge
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 10:42:11 -0700
From: Thomas Howell <thowel...@...thlink.net>
Subject: Re: ojoden

 Hi Michelle,

Frederic Kotas wrote an article "The Craft of Dying in Late Heian Japan" which might work well. It is in Bukkyou bungaku no kousou, ed by Imanari Genshou (Shintensha 1996), pp 598-571. (It is in English).

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 15:35:04 +0900
From: Nobumi Iyanaga <n-iya...@....bekkoame.ne.jp>
Subject: [Announce] UnixGrep macro for Nisus Writer Express

Hello,

Yesterday, I uploaded to my web site a little AppleScript macro for Nisus Writer Express (<http://www.nisus.com/free/redirect.php?product=NisusWriterExpress>) that will allow you to perform Unix grep searches from within Nisus Writer Express. You will type your search word in a NW-Ex window, select it and choose "UnixGrep" in Macros menu. A file dialog will ask you to locate the folder in which you want to do your search (the folder must contain TEXT files in UTF-8, with the extension ".txt").
After a while, a file named "grepRes.txt" will open in NW-Ex, showing the result. The search word may be of any language, and can contain special diacritical characters (like "r" with a dot below, etc.). And you can specify grep options to be used for searches.
This macro requires Jon's Commands X (<http://www.seanet.com/~jonpugh/>).

Please download UnixGrep.scpt from:
<http://www.bekkoame.ne.jp/~n-iyanag/researchTools/unixgrep_for_nwe.html>

I hope this will be of some interest for you.

Best regards,

Nobumi Iyanaga
Tokyo,
Japan

P.S. I cross-post this message to the Nisus mailing list, to the H-Buddhism mailing list and the pmjs mailing list. Apologies in advance to those who receive this message more than once.
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Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 14:09:33 -0800
From: "Susan B. Klein" <sbkl...@....edu>
Subject: shiranami [was: Poem by Jimon]

On a related topic, I've heard before that the term "shiranami" used for robbers is traced back to readings of a poem from Ise monogatari 23 (KKS 994):

kaze fukeba
okitsu shiranami
tatsutayama
yowa ni ya kimi ga
hitori koyuran

When the wind blows, in the offing white waves rise; will you cross Tatsuta Mountain all alone in the night?

In other words, faced with a preface that pivots on a completely arbitrary pun on tatsu, leaving the preface and rest of the poem with almost no "meaningful" connection, commentators argued that "shiranami" must mean "robbers." And then it subsequently actually became a slang term for robbers. Does anyone know if this is true? Or are there examples of earlier texts that use the term shiranami for robbers?

Susan
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Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 15:33:44 +0000
From: Anthony Chambers <anthony.chamb...@....edu>
Subject: Re: shiranami [was: Poem by Jimon]

Having just taught this poem (and the Noh play Izutsu) it's fresh in my mind, though I have no expertise in waka or Heian monogatari. I read, in an Ise commentary, that the "robbers" association for "shiranami" originated in China. The same commentary said that the consensus among Ise scholars is that the reference in Ise 23 is NOT to robbers. Can someone be more definitive?

Tony Chambers
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Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 10:42:18 -0800
From: Royall Tyler <ty...@...aca-s.com>
Subject: Re: shiranami [was: Poem by Jimon]

Takeoka Masao's ISE MONOGATARI ZENCHUUSHAKU has a lot of material on this poem. If I remember rightly, it's by no means certain that this particular shiranami refers to robbers, although the first part of the poem is certainly enigmatic. I believe the "white waves = robbers" business is originally Chinese.

Royall Tyler
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Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 17:57:54 -0500
From: "Mindspring" <duckho...@...dspring.com>
Subject: Re: shiranami [was: Poem by Jimon]

I understand that the sobriquet referes to an incident during the Eastern Han Dynasty, when remnants of the Yellow Turban Sect are recorded to have holed up in the Beibo Gu ("White Wave Valley") and turned to banditry - hence earning the name.

None of the references I have would suggest that "shiranami" in the poem from Izutsu refers to robbers. It would seem inappropriate in context, in any case.

Kenneth J. Bryson
<mailto:duckho...@...dspring.com>duckho...@...dspring.com
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Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 17:30:00 -0700
From: Noel John Pinnington <no...@...rizona.edu>
Subject: Re: shiranami

Isn't the Kaze fukeba poem (and its context) a kind of erotic variation on
Princess Oku's somonka to her brother, Otsu, 105, 106 Manyoshu (Gakujutsu
Shinkokai translation)

wagaseko o yamato e yaru to sayo fukete akatoki tsuyu ni waga tachinureshi
To speed my brother parting for Yamato, In the deep of night I stood till
wet with the dew of dawn

futari yukedo yuki sugi kataki akiyama o ika ni ka kimi ga hitori koyuramu
The lonely autumn mountains are hard to pass over even when two go together
-
How does my brother cross them alone

In this version the last two phrases (ika ni ka kimi ga hitori koyuramu) are
rich with the sense of danger, because Otsu is going back to challenge the
throne and be executed, so it seems quite reasonable that in the Ise version
the danger is converted to that of bandits. After all surely there were
bandits in the mountains in the 9th century - especially likely to prey on
people who make their living "traveling the countryside".

Noel Pinnington
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Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 19:51:20 -0500
From: Lawrence E Marceau <lmarc...@...l.Edu>
Subject: Re: shiranami [was: Poem by Jimon]

Kenneth Bryson is correct in his attribution to the incident. The Hou Han shu (J. Gokanjo) chronicle on the reign of Emperor Ling (Ling di) cites the Beibo zei (白波賊) as the name of the Yellow Turban remnants. (Kojien, Kadokawa kogo daijiten)

Lawrence Marceau
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Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 22:06:32 -0500
From: "Peter D. Shapinsky" <pshap...@...ch.edu>
Subject: Re: shiranami [was: Poem by Jimon]

The term also appears in medieval writings by Imagawa Ryoshun (both
Michiyukiburi and "Rokuon'in dono Itsukushima moodeki"). He uses it to
equate dangerous places on the sea-lanes where pirates rule with the pirates
themselves. Narrow channels that throw up white caps are also strategic
locations where pirates would set up toll barriers and lairs. So for those
faint-hearted travelers, already frightening white-caps took on the added
menace of marauding pirates.

Peter Shapinsky
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Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 07:52:17 +0000
From: Richard Bowring <rb...@...mes.cam.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: shiranami [was: Poem by Jimon]

An interesting string but the original one has unravelled. Does no one have
an answer to the Jimon reference?
Richard Bowring
Cambridge
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Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 17:50:13 +0900
From: Michael Watson <wat...@...eijigakuin.ac.jp>
Subject: Re: shiranami [was: Poem by Jimon]

The poem was cited as "Yashikaki mo moto wa Nahiwa no/ Ashi nareba/Kosu mo kotowari nari/ Yoru no shiranami."

Ingo Schaefer is surely right that "Nahiwa" should read Naniwa, but I am not sure about Richard Bowring's emendation from "mo" to "no" in the first line.

If we read "*Ashi*kaki mo moto wa Naniwa no.." then it would mean:

"The reed fence is originally (moto = motomoto) a Naniwa reed and so it is not surprising that the white waves of the night go over it (= that the burglars can climb over the fence)."

The expression ashikaki on its own goes back to Man'yo.

Utamakura dictionaries note that "Naniwa no ashi" grows near the sea. "Naniwa no ashi" is a common expression. "Tsu no kuni no Naniwa no ashi" appears in Kokinshu (Tsurayuki) and Shinkokinshu (Saigyo), for example.

There may be well some other puns as Richard Bowring suggests: nani/what, ashi/foot, and kotowari/refuse.

No luck for the poem as a whole in the electronic Kokka Taikan--"yoru no shiranami" itself is not common in the classical anthologies. The poem is likely to be Edo period at the earliest, when "shiranami" acquired the secondary meaning of robbers--as in the kabuki plays about robbers called "Shiranami-mono."

Michael Watson
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Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 08:51:22 -0800
From: "Susan B. Klein" <sbkl...@....edu>
Subject: Re: shiranami [was: Poem by Jimon]

Wow what a great response to a very casual question. I love this list!

I should have made myself clearer -- I'm sure the contemporary consensus is that "shiranami" in the poem does not allude to robbers, although after reading Noel's response, it seems as though a case could be made after all. I was thinking about medieval readings of the poem, such as Shimabara bunko-bon Wakachikenshu:

Query: yama ni shiranami no tatsu to yomeru wa, ikani. Kokoro gatashi.

Reply: kono shiranami to ifu wa, makoto no nami ni arazu. Nusubito o, shiranami to ifu nari.

Query: What are white waves doing rising on a mountain? This poem makes no sense.
Reply: Those "white waves" are not real waves. Robbers are referred to as "white waves."
:
Then there's an "etymology" that I can't make much sense of (and don't feel up to figuring out at the moment) but it wouldn't be surprising to me if WCS was attempting to naturalize (and give a native source for) an originally Chinese term. Imagawa Ryoshun seems to have naturalized the term further by making the shiranami pirates. But as far as I know although WCS (dated to around 1260s) mentions Shiki fairly often, it makes no mention of Gokanjo. When would Gokanjo have been introduced to Japan?

I got to thinking about "shiranami" because I had assigned a shiranami mono (as Michael notes, a Kabuki genre of plays with bandit heros) and I idly wondered if the WCS reading of IM 23 was related. The Kabuki encyclopedia says that the term was coined by the ko-dan artist Sho-rin Hakuen II, who wrote a series of bandit stories that were turned into plays by Kawatake Mokuami. And it points to the same Chinese source for the name ("White River Valley"). Although the Edo literati would have been happy to cite Chinese sources, it seems unlikely that Hakuen would have used the term if it wasn't already current slang?

Susan

At 03:33 PM 10/27/2003 +0000, Anthony Chambers wrote:

Having just taught this poem (and the Noh play Izutsu) it's fresh in my mind, though I have no expertise in waka or Heian monogatari. I read, in an Ise commentary, that the "robbers" association for "shiranami" originated in China. The same commentary said that the consensus among Ise scholars is that the reference in Ise 23 is NOT to robbers. Can someone be more definitive?

Tony Chambers
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Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 05:41:49 -1000
From: Melanie Trede <m...@....edu>
Subject: inscription dates versus dedication dates

Apologies for cross-postings.

Dear Colleagues,

I wonder whether anyone can comment on the following problem regarding the importance of inscription dates versus dedication dates of paintings (or any other media) donated to temples or shrines.

We read Takagishi Akira’s recent re-interpretation of the Seiryoji version of the Yuzu nenbutsu engi emaki (published in “Bukkyo geijutsu” 264 (September 2002) in which he traces the relationship of the various contributing calligraphers to Yoshimitsu, Yoshimochi and Ryochin, and investigates the significance of the dates given after each text passage. A number of dates in the year 1414 coincide with days that can be connected to Yoshimitsu’s death anniversary or the Seiryoji temple, supporting Takagishi’s conclusion that the scrolls were commissioned in order to commemorate Yoshimitsu’s seventh death anniversary (rather than commemorating the deceased emperor Go’Enyu which was the common interpretation until now). However, the scroll
s could not have been dedicated on Yoshimitsu’s death anniversary because there are three text passages which are dated well after this day, and the paintings were also possibly executed afterwards.

My question is therefore, whether the date inscribed on the very object or on an accompanying dedication text was more important than the actual date of dedication?

Thanks for any comparable examples, hints and thoughts.

Best wishes,
melanie trede

***************************
Institute of Fine Arts
1 East 78th Street
New York, N.Y. 10021
m...@....edu
Tel. +1 - 212-992-5869
Fax: +1 - 212-992-5807
***************************
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Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 18:28:22 -0700
From: "Karen L. Brock" <klb...@...thlink.net>
Subject: Re: inscription dates versus dedication dates

Hi Melanie and all,

So glad to hear this article has been published, as its an important
contribution to medieval emaki studies.

Why should one have to choose between one date or another in terms of
its importance? We all know that emaki take months if not years to
produce and are the result of a complicated process of collaboration.
Shouldn't we instead consider all of the dates significant, from
dedication (maybe that is the wrong word?) to completion which could
take much longer? Each date no doubt has its own significance for the
inscriber or the project coordinator. How fortunate that this scroll set
has multiple dates!

Just some thoughts, I'm sure there are numerous other examples of this
phenomenon that will come to light.

Karen L. Brock
Albuquerque, New Mexico USA
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Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 12:08:45 -0500
From: "robin d gill" <robin...@...lsouth.net>
Subject: holothurian haiku book is out

Dear Michael and Minasama,

Okagesama-de, my first book in English, Rise, Ye Sea Slugs! has indeed
risen.

With over 900 holothurian haiku (the "slug" follows Blyth and others who
favor metaphor and meter cucumber would take up too much of the haiku over scientific nomenclature) in both the Japanese original (not to mention
romaji) and an average of two translations per poem, ample interpretation
and notes to burn, it ended up 480 small margin huge pgs (7.44 x 9.66), yet
retails (via Ingram = largest distributor, live as of today) for just $25...
I do not mean that as an ad, but to point out that the inexpensive
publication of books with Japanese mixed in them is now possible, for I
recall we once had some members (rightfully) complaining of the exorbitant
price of such books. To do this, I became a publisher: Paraverse Press. I
give some details and in the future will give more at:

http://www.paraverse.org/

Let me add that the site has pages in English and Japanese for Errata
(seigohyou) and Glosses (rangaichuu) for the second edition of Rise. I do
not know if this is a first for a press or commonplace by now, but it
reflects the fact that POD printing (Lightningsource in my case) is so
inexpensive that it makes sense to publish and THEN get comments from
readers. I think academics might do well to publish their bks in this way
prior to sending them to the prestigious press for juried selection, etc...

Just this morning (10/28) I found something to add to the second edition in
the Shiranami discussion, for haiku #53 in my book is "shiranami no mono to
shi mo naki namako kana kakubei(?)" and I had thought it mainly a matter
of contrasting styles, gloppy vs cool square-jawed kabuki actors, but there
is another old haiku about the mukashi otoko being a namako (softspine lady's man) and, now, I see that the shiranami haiku might be playing against that!

Let me put my "author’s comment" here for your amusement (visit my website
for a real introduction!)

How funny to think that with this one book not only will the number of haiku
about sea cucumber (namako) translated into English multiply a hundred-fold,
but the sea cucumber will become the most translated haiku theme in the
English language, for it is unlikely that any of the most popular themes
(cherry blossoms, summer heat, cicada, the fall moon, crickets, scarecrows,
and snow?) enjoy an equal number of translations. I hope haiku powers on
both sides of the Pacific forgive me and namako our gross distortion of
their world!

When I wrote "okagesama de," I really meant it, for my support (and best
blurb) came from fellow pmjs members who contacted me thanks to this forum.

robin gill
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Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 18:03:04 -0500
From: Barbara Ruch <br...@...umbia.edu>
Subject: 5th anniversary events of the Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies, Columbia University on 10/29/03

The Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies is pleased to commemorate
its 35th Anniversary. We would be honored to have your presence at our
celebration. All events are free and open to the public.

Wednesday, October 29th, 2003
at the Rotunda of Low Library
Columbia University

5:00-6:00pm A CELEBRATORY LECTURE
in honor of the memory of eleven nun-artists _Celebrating Buddhist Art
by Edo-Period Princess-Nuns_ by Prof. Patricia Fister of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto

6:00-7:00pm AN OFFERTORY OF MUSIC
in honor of the memory of the eleven imperial abbesses whose religious
art we celebrate.

"Ave Suavis Dilectio" Motet, Opus 6 (1676)
by the Italian nun Isabella Leonarda (1670-1704)
An offering from Western nun to Japanese nun contemporaries

"Fuki" (kumi uta), for the koto
Songs the princess-nuns knew well

A World Premier "Das Cartas" (2003)
for mixed chorus, harp and koto by Hiroya Miura
Based on Hyakunin isshu (100 Poets/100 Poems)
a collection beloved by nuns and in their convents, used in a poetry
card game

"ear for EAR(antiphonies)" (1983) by John Cage
A meditative choral work influenced by Japanese sacred chant

"Dan no ura" by Kinshi Tsuruta & Yoko Mizuno
A lament of war; a prayer for peace
performed by eminent biwa artist Kakujo Nakamura

A reception will follow at 7:00pm. Please help us to anticipate your
presence by kindly sending an RSVP by fax (212-854-1470) or email
(medievalja...@...umbia.edu).

On October 29, 2003 the Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies, located
at Columbia University, celebrates in New York the 35th anniversary of
its founding and the 10th anniversary of its Imperial Buddhist Convent
Research and Restoration Project in Kyoto and Nara, Japan.

The 2003 anniversary year began this spring with the Institute's
world-premier exhibition at the Nomura Art Museum in Kyoto of "Art by
Buddhist Nuns: Treasures from the Imperial Buddhist Convents of Japan,"
the first ever exhibition of Edo-period religious art created by
Japanese nuns.

The celebratory events planned for New York include a richly illustrated
public lecture by curator of that exhibition, Professor Patricia Fister
of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto, who
will speak about the Japanese royal princess-nuns of the 17th and 18th
centuries whose amazing talent and faith produced some of the Edo
period's most moving Buddhist artworks, none of which had ever been seen
before by the Japanese public. Her lecture, entitled "Celebrating
Buddhist Art by Edo Period Princess-Nuns," will be followed by a concert
of Western and Japanese vocal and instrumental music presented as an
offertory (kenkyoku) to honor the memory of the eleven royal
princess-nun artists who are the focus of this event. The program will
include works composed by the 17th-century Italian nun, Isabella
Leonarda (1620-1704), who lived during the same years as the Japanese
nuns - - an offering from Western nun to Japanese nuns who shared life
on our earth at the same time. There will also be koto music that would
have been familiar to the Japanese princess-nuns, as well as a
USA-premier of a modern work for voice and koto that incorporates waka
poetry well-known to the princess-nuns from the card game played in both
court and convent, based on "One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets"
(Haykunin Isshu).

The program will conclude with the virtuoso biwa artist Nakamura Kakujo,
who will perform a biwa-accompanied canticle based on the terrible
12th-century battles that destroyed the Heike clan and led to the
tonsure of the empress, offered as a lament against war and a prayer for
peace that transcends nations and centuries.

These celebrations reflect the Institute's long-term efforts to bring to
light the sorely neglected history of the many women who, over the
centuries, made major contributions to Japanese cultural matters. It
highlights as well the Institute's continuing efforts to bring
traditional Japanese music and musical instruments into the mainstream
world of 21st-century music.

These events, which are free and open to the public, will take place
from 5:00pm through 7:00pm on October 29, 2003 in the Rotunda of Low
Memorial Library, Columbia University, at Broadway and 116th Street.
Please come and join us.

Behind all these events lies the philosophy that moves all the
Institute's activities: a belief that the touchstone of history can
provide perspective and remedy to present-day dilemmas; that keeping in
touch with the legacy of forebears inspires us, in the words of Abbess
Mugai Nyodai, "to polish our own hearts."

We will be grateful if you consider supporting our work. For details
contact:

Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies
509 Kent Hall, MC 3906
Columbia University
New York, NY 10027
Phone: (212) 854-7403
Fax: (212) 854-1470
Email: medievalja...@...umbia.edu
Website: www.columbia.edu/cu/ealac/imjs
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Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 15:50:51 +0100
From: schaefer.i...@...enet.de
Subject: Jimon's poem

It has been a pleasure to read all your comments on Jimon's poem. I think the tranlation provided by Michael Watson is very close to the interpretation Guo Moruo had in mind. "Shiranami "seems to be of Chinese origin relating to the remnants of the Yellow turbans in Eastern Han time. Actually the Ci yuan has bai lang zei (bandits of Bailang [Valley]) instead of Bai bo zei mentioned by Kenneth J. Bryson (and in the Kogo Jiten too). Anyway both hanzi have the reading nami. It seems that bai lang was not in (popular) use as metaphor for robbers in Chinese (I checked the Ciyuan and the Hanyu Da Cidian CD Rom-version. Well, I did not check the Peiwen yunfu for that), again, my Kogo Jiten has the word.

Perhaps you are interested in the interpretation Guo provides for the poem? Here it is: "the poem seems to describe waves washing over the reed. Its true meaning however is: all the things in the monastery were brought in from the outside, and consequently the robbers take them away. Which effect however did this short poem have? The robbers unchained the nun, left their entire booty behind and ran away. This happened because Jimon's feeling of indifference caused the robbers to feel indifferently. From this we are able to recognize that art can combine the feelings of human beings and guide them to direct theirs actions toward a common goal."

Does anybody know something about the nun Jimon?

Ingo Schaefer
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Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 08:23:39 -0500
From: Lawrence E Marceau <lmarc...@...l.Edu>
Subject: Re: Poem by Jimon

The following website (for children), called "Hikone no senkaku" or
"Illustrious Ancesters of Hikone" includes under "Jihi bukai kajin" (The
Compassionate Waka Poet) an anecdotal biography of a nun, Jimon (慈門
尼、1700-1775).

http://kids.city.hikone.shiga.jp/senkaku/05.html#04

Jimon's hermitage was on the shore of Lake Biwa, where she could see the
waves through the reeds, presumably. The site mentions how she gave her
clothes to beggars who came by boat to her hermitage, and how she fed
rice gruel to a robber in the middle of the night and caused him to
convert to a life dedicated to the Buddha. She studied waka under the
Confucian scholar and retainer to the Hikone domain, Sawamura Kinsho (
村琴所). She left behind a collection of her waka, the Shoufuu-shuu
(しょうふう集, I assume 松風集).

A convent called the Jimon-an 慈門庵 survives in Otsu City, on the west
shore of Lake Biwa today, and it may have been moved there from Jimon's
original Hikone hermitage on the east shore...

No mention of the poem in question, but Jimon's biography seems to be
available in the series, Kinko zenrin soudan (近古禅林叢談).

Also, I thought that "Yashikaki" might also be "Yoshikaki," since ashi
and yoshi are not interchangeable, but they also serve as stand-ins for
"bad" and "good", but, while "ashikaki/ashigaki" is in the Kadokawa kogo
jiten, "yoshikaki/yoshigaki" isn't. Oh, well...

Lawrence Marceau

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Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 08:27:15 -0500
From: Lawrence E Marceau <lmarc...@...l.Edu>
Subject: Re: Poem by Jimon--correction

Well, it turns out that "yoshigaki" is in the dictionary, as
"fence/enclosure made from a yoshizu, or rush sunshade"...

Plot thickens...

Lawrence M.
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Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 17:41:16 +0100
From: Melanie Trede <m...@....edu>
Subject: Re: inscription dates versus dedication dates

Hi Karen and all,

Thank you for your response and interesting suggestion to take all inscribed dates on scrolls as significant factors for a scroll production.

The matter of fact is, however, that Takagishi uses the dates to reinterpret the ultimate purpose of the commission of the scroll. Up until now, the last inscription by Sukenmon'in (on a separate sheet of paper attached at the end of the second scroll and dated 1417) which states that the scrolls were dedicated in commemoration of the (much earlier) deceased emperor GoEn'yu was taken at face value.
Takagishi's reading of the inscribed dates, however, leads him to conclude that the scrolls were made in commemoration of the 7th death anniversary of Yoshimitsu in 1414. He also includes a detailed discussion of the contributing calligraphers to prove their link to Yoshimitsu. So my question is whether it wouldn't matter that the scrolls were not completed to be dedicated to the Seiryoji temple in 1414, and instead the i
nscribed dates were more significant. Are there known examples of incomplete scrolls (or other objects) dedicated to temples/shrines for the sake of a particular date?

In the end, of course one could argue--much along the lines of the Yuzu nenbutsu thought-- that there might have been multiple purposes for this scroll and every inscriber had his own thoughts for whom to dedicate the contributions. But Takagishi thinks that the scrolls were not produced for the commemoration of GoEn'yu.

Sorry for the long-winding email,
and I am curious to see what comparable examples might come up.

Best wishes,
melanie trede
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Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 13:28:17 -0500 (EST)
From: Gina Cogan <g...@...umbia.edu>
Subject: infant mortality rates in Tokugawa era

Dear list members,

Can someone direct me to information about infant mortality rates in the
Tokugawa period, specifically the seventeenth century? I checked Susan
Hanley's book for this, but her data are a little to late for what I'm
concentrating on.

Thank you very much,

Gina Cogan
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 15:06:47 -0500
From: Philip Brown <brown....@....edu>
Subject: Re: infant mortality rates in Tokugawa era

I think you will find relatively little reliable data for the earlier period. Good series of Shumon Aratame cho or Kako cho do not begin to show up until the eighteenth century, and often the late eighteenth century. Folks interested in family reconstitution and demographic history (Hayami and those who have worked with him in particular) have not generally been interested in looking at scattered (over time and place) data.

Philip Brown
History
Ohio State University
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 12:19:27 -0800 (PST)
From: Alexander Bay <igaku...@...oo.com>
Subject: Re: infant mortality rates in Tokugawa era

See Epidemics and mortality in early modern Japan

Jannetta, Ann Bowman, it should give you some of the
info you are looking for.
Best,
Alex Bay
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Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 15:35:28 -0800
From: Thomas Howell <thowel...@...thlink.net>
Subject: Re: shiranami [was: Poem by Jimon]

On 2003.Oct.28, at 08:51 AM, Susan B. Klein wrote:

Query: What are white waves doing rising on a mountain? This poem makes no sense.
Reply: Those "white waves" are not real waves. Robbers are referred to as "white waves."
:
Then there's an "etymology" that I can't make much sense of (and don't feel up to figuring out at the moment) but it wouldn't be surprising to me if WCS was attempting to naturalize (and give a native source for) an originally Chinese term. Imagawa Ryoshun seems to have naturalized the term further by making the shiranami pirates. But as far as I know although WCS (dated to around 1260s) mentions Shiki fairly often, it makes no mention of Gokanjo. When would Gokanjo have been introduced to Japan?

A partial answer to the distribution of the term shiranami in Japan may be in the following:

Morohashi has three references for shiranami, meaning robbers.
The first is the Gokanjo, already mentioned.The second is, I think, a Tang geography text, but the last is Azumakagami, "on Kenpou 4 (1216) 2nd m 29th day, there were white waves (robbers) that entered Touji and took away relics." So the usage seems to have been known, whether directly from Gokanjo or some other intermediary source.

Tom
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Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 18:54:46 -0500
From: "Mindspring" <duckho...@...dspring.com>
Subject: Re: shiranami [was: Poem by Jimon]

This thread is probably getting cold, but following up on someone's question
I did find one potential terminus post quam for Hou Han Shu (Gokanjo)in
Japan. In the fifteenth book (reign of Emperor Kensou)of Nihon Shoki there
is a passage describing peaceful times that I have found described as
obviously paraphrasing a passage in Hou Han Shu from the reign of the
emperor Mingdi.

Regards,
Kenneth J. Bryson
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Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 01:23:28 +0900
From: Michael Watson <wat...@...eijigakuin.ac.jp>
Subject: iro iro

A few loosely related points from me as pmjs editor.
Lawrence Marceau seems to have successfully identified Jimon. Well done, all, for the fine detective work on nuns, reeds, and white waves. As Ingo Schaefer is a subscriber to the daily digest of pmjs, so that the news hasn't reached him in Germany yet, but will in a moment, when I send out the digest.

[Dear digest subscribers. If you calculate the time zones, you'll see that I have changed the order of the first three messages to make for easier reading.]

Some of you who receive "pmjs as it comes" may be finding it hard to keep up with the torrent of pmjs mail. October and November have always among the busiest months on pmjs. Should you want to try the one of the digest versions ("daily" or "weekly"), feel free to change:
http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/~watson/pmjs/

Cutting/pasting messages to edit the daily digest is not complicated--and with 136 digest members it is something that I feel is worth doing well. PLEASE, however, make the work easier by avoiding diacritics of all kind. No circumflexes, no accents, and certainly no macrons. And if you can possibly avoid them, no "smart" (curved) quotation marks and apostrophes. I end up having to edit them out manually.

Some mail software handle such characters well, some not. Of the two I use, "Mail" for Mac OSX does a good job, but the Japanese version of Eudora doesn't. The curved apostrophe becomes the CHI of chikan, for example.

The second and more important reason for me as editor, is that if kanji are included any other messages in the daily or weekly digest, then I must either omit the kanji, or omit the diacritics and "smart" punctuation. If I miss even one, the whole message becomes unreadable for some subscribers.

When I have to choose, I usually opt to keep Japanese text and omit fancy characters/formatting. I am aware of course that an increasing number of you have mail software that can handle a mixture of language codes, but until this is the general rule, I'd like to keep things simple. So if you could, please indicate vowel length when necessary in -ou- or -ou- style, or add Japanese text to make things clear. Many thanks.

Michael Watson

::::: pmjs footer:::::

Richard Bowring, _Murasaki Shikibu: The Tale of Genji_
2nd edition
Cambridge University Press, October 2003
http://books.cambridge.org/0521539757.htm
(first chapter can be downloaded in PDF format)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0521539757/

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