The Dilemma of Faith in Modern Japanese Literature
By Dr. Massimiliano Tomasi
Nov 14, 2019
5- 7p.m.
Asian Centre 604
*RSVP required
The spread of Protestant Christianity in late nineteenth-century Japan generated excitement among intellectuals, and a considerable number of writers converted during their youth. Virtually all of these writers, however, eventually relinquished their faith, casting doubt on the possible impact that such religious experience had on the development of their narrative. Drawing from his recent book
The Dilemma of Faith in Modern Japanese Literature: Metaphors of Christianity
(New York and London: Routledge, 2018), Dr. Tomasi explores the reasons for these authors' ultimate rejection of Christianity, examining the process of their conversion and unveiling the significant influence that this had on their self-construction and their literary production. He will also introduce his current work on the interface between the Meiji and TaishÅ Christian experience and the intriguing developments that followed- most notably the prominence of Catholicism among the writers of the postwar period.
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The Literature and Calligraphy Introduced by Kukai
Dr. Kono Kimiko
Nov 20, 2019
12:00-1:00 p.m.
C.K. Choi 351
Kukai (774-835), a monk who visited Tang (618-907) China as part of a diplomatic embassy in the beginning of the 9th century, not only introduced Shingon Mikkyo (the Shingon school of Esoteric Buddhism) to Japan, is also famous as the one who compiled the literary criticism
Bunkyo-hifu-ron (Secret Treasury of Poetic Mirrors) that writes about various contemporary literary theories in the Tang period. Kukai also brought back materials about calligraphies and fonts, which contain authentic handwriting by emperors and calligraphers. He offered these materials to Emperor Saga (786-942).
The journey of Kukai was also a journey of cultural products that were related to Sinographs and literary Sinitic. After Kukai came back to Japan, he often took his brush to practice varieties of calligraphy in response to Emperor Saga's request. In an era of manuscripts, how did people conceptualize the notion of writing "letters" (
moji)? In this talk, I will start with the calligraphy and theories of calligraphy made by the leading intellectual and great calligrapher in the early Heian period (794-1185), Kukai. I will investigate the ideas concerning the function of the literary medium (
mono) and the behavior of writing "letters." I will also examine in what sense letters (
moji/bun) were produced within the Sinographic culture sphere in the era of manuscripts and explore what kinds of impact they made.
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The "History Wars" and the "Comfort Woman" Issue:
Revisionism and the Right-wing in Contemporary Japan, U.S., and Canada"
Dr. Tomomi Yamaguchi and Satoko Oka Norimatsu
Nov 21, 2019
7-9pm
C.K Choi 120
Based on Dr. Yamaguchi's anthropological fieldwork on the Japanese right-wing activities in the U.S. and Japan, as well as the experiences of people involved in the making of the "comfort women" memorials in the U.S., Dr. Yamaguchi will demonstrate how this issue functions as an important rallying point to tie together disparate right-wing forces in and outside Japan.
Dr. Yamaguchi will also highlight how the acts of remembering and commemorating the survivors' experiences of wartime violence against women become such a contentious, political issue that mobilize the Japanese right-wing so intensively and emotionally both in Japan and the United States.
Following Dr. Yamaguchi's talk, Satoko Oka Norimatsu, Yamaguchi's fellow Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus
editor and a Vancouver-based author, will introduce "history wars" in Canada, in 2015 over the plan to build a "comfort women" statue in Burnaby, and in 2018 over the movement to establish a Nanjing Massacre Commemorative Day in Canada.
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