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Engaging Acts |
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Engaging Acts |
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What are these things for?
These activities are aimed to enhance your reading, looking, thinking, imagining, and writing skills through an engagement with a variety of textual and visual materials related to Japanese cultural history. They are designed to encourage you to develop and broaden your critical and interpretive abilities in an enjoyable, non-threatening way. You do not have to be particularly "creative" to complete them successfully. Nor should you consider that there is one "right answer" to each of these four assignments. As you will learn throughout this course, history is not simply a set of facts and "right answers" strung together. On the other hand, it is not sheer freewheeling speculation either. History involves a lot of careful research, logical reasoning, imaginative thinking, and persuasive presentation. For your part, better and lesser efforts in these "Engaging Acts" are clearly possible. Your goal should be to draw fruitful connections among the course materials and present a thoughtful and well-presented take on the topic under consideration.
How do you do them?
Each Engaging Act involves course readings and visual materials from the corresponding "Engaging Vision" for that unit. You study and interact with this material and then compose a response to it based on questions within the Engaging Acts guidelines. Your response to EA#1 will be verbal, in-class discussion, and be counted as part of your participation grade; the other three involve written responses that will be graded separately as outlined under Work. In general, you will have already viewed the Engaging Vision on its own before beginning the Engaging Act, but should re-view it after reading the guidelines for its companion Engaging Act. Specific guidelines, all rather self-explanatory, are accessible by scrolling down this page or clicking on the desired Act from the following menu. I would like your work emailed to me as an MS Word attachment (Mac or Windows). If you do not use Word, then please save files as RTF (Rich Text Format). Please do not send WordPerfect or MS Works files; they tend to get lost in translation.
Engaging Acts Menu |
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1. The History and Politics of Myth and Ritual |
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2. Relating in (to) Genji's World |
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3. Buddhist Life, Warrior Death |
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4. People & Play in Ukiyo-Edo |
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To interpret Japanese myths and ritual space for what they might reveal about ancient Japanese historical, political, and social formations.
Topics, Chapter Two; "Eternal Change at the Grand Shrine of Ise," Kojiki; Engaging Visions #1
After militarily subduing competing clans, the Yamato clan set about consolidating imperial power by compiling official histories of the country's founding. The Nihongi (Chronicles of Japan) and the Kojiki (Record of Ancient Matters), commissioned in the late 7th century and finally completed in the early 8th century, are the result. Being a mix of myth, history, and imperial geneology (itself both mythical and historical), they invite interpretation as political, religious, and ideological texts.
Imperial consolidation also involved Yamato clan monopoly over Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess, who the imperial line claimed as its ancestor. The Inner Shrine (Naikû) of the Ise Shrine complex was dedicated to Amaterasu while the Outer Shrine (Gekû) was dedicated to Toyouke, a god of harvests. Since the 690's, both shrines have been regularly rebuilt (with some exceptions) every 20 years at an adjacent alternate site in a ritual shrine renewal (shikinen sengû) of political and symbolic meanings.
Instructions
1. View Engaging Vision #1: "Mythical Visions: A Tour of Ise Shrine"
Examine the images of the grounds and the buildings of the shrine complex and try to interpret for yourself the political and symbolic aspects of the architecture. Why is it located where it is? Why does it take the form it does? Why is it rebuilt as it is? Etc.
2. Read the materials on the Kojiki and listed above.
Consider how these mythical and mythistorical texts might symbolically represent historical events, political struggles, and assertions of social order.
3. Note your historical interpretations of the myths and Ise Shrine.
Imagine yourself as a kind of archeologist trying to make sense of ancient ruins and cryptic texts. Get into the role: theorize based on the clues you have, make connections, cite textual and architectual evidence, and present plausible conclusions. And then be prepared to discuss the material in class on Friday, September 1.
To demonstrate an understanding of the intricate social world and subtle sensibilities of the Heian aristocracy.
Topics, Chapter Three; Genji & Heike, 3-242; Engaging Vision #2
Murasaki Shikibu's eleventh-century novel The Tale of Genji arguably represents the best existing historical source we have for an idea of the society and culture of the Heian period. It depicts, above all else, what historian George Sansom called "the rule of taste" among the Heian aristocracy. One's daily interactions with others--and even the governing of the imperial court--was heavily determined by a highly refined sense of aesthetics. One's success at courtship and at court could be made or broken by one's calligraphy, wit with words, choice of paper, hair-style, clothes, perfume, form of greeting or departure, or knowledge of proper seasonal motifs for the occasion. Of course, natural good looks could go a long way too. . . .
Even as Heian nobles cultivated this refined sense for the beauty of things, they were, chiefly through Buddhist teachings, keenly aware of the impermanence (mujô) of things. This sense of pathos for the ephemeral is referred to as "mono no aware," and it too is depicted throughout The Tale of Genji and much of the Buddhist-inspired literature that followed.
1. View Engaging Vision #2: "Aristocratic Visions: The World of the Shining Prince"
Follow the directions provided within Engaging Vision #2 for your interaction with the scenes depicted from The Tale of Genji. You might want to imagine yourself as Sei Shônagon, author of The Pillow Book, or a sociologist snooping in on the affairs of others.
2. Read the selections from The Tale of Genji and Topics listed above.
Pay particular attention to instances of "the rule of taste" as manifested between friends, enemies, lovers, and courtiers.
3. Write up the following:
Choose one scene from Engaging Vision #2 and identify as best you can the corresponding text from the The Tale of Genji. Then, comment on the characters and actions depicted in the scene as if you were a social gossip, perhaps taking Sei Shônagon as your inspiration. Between 400 and 600 words, emailed to me as Word attachment.
To consider how medieval Japanese Buddhist teachings and cosmology related to the harsh realities of a warrior-dominated world.
Topics, Chapter Four and Chapter Five; Genji & Heike, 245-277, 305-445; Engaging Vision #3
One apparent contradiction in medieval Japan (roughly 1200-1600) was the popularization and patronage of various sects of Buddhism--with its First Precept against the taking of life--alongside the rise of the warrior class and the carnage it brought with it. Buddhist temples were supported by the Kamakura and Ashikaga bakufu, Buddhist overtones fill war tales like The Tale of the Heike, and Buddhist notions about the cosmos informed much of the narrative, visual, and performative art which warriors often commissioned and enjoyed. Many warriors were attracted to Zen Buddhism. Upon closer inspection, the mix of warriors and Buddhists might actually make some sense, especially when one considers the cultural prestige and political power that could be accrued through their association.
One might also explain this association between death-dealers and life-protectors by considering them in the context of beliefs about mappô, mujô, and the Six Courses (Rokudô) of existence. In some ways, Buddhist ideals and warrior reality can be seen as going hand-in-hand.
1. View Engaging Vision #3: "Medieval Visions: Warriors & Buddhists"
Follow the directions provided within Engaging Vision #3 for your interaction with scenes from warrior tales and Buddhist hells.
2. Read the selections from The Tale of the Heike, Topics, listed above.
Look for Buddhist overtones in The Tale of the Heike, especially with respect to the theory of mappô (the latter days of the [Buddhist] Law), mujô, and the concept of transmigration through Rokudô.
3. Write a short dialogue . . .
. . . between any two characters from The Tale of the Heike as they meet reborn in one of the Six Courses after their earthly deaths (you choose the Course(s) that you think they deserve). Have them discuss together their understanding of how they got there and their belief or non-belief in Buddhist notions of existence. Between 600 and 800 words, emailed to me as Word attachment.
To study the diversity of people and pastimes of the Edo (Tokugawa) period through popular literature and woodblock prints (nishiki-e), especially so-called ukiyo-e, "pictures of the floating world."
Topics, Chapter Seven; Japanese Inn, chapters 1-4, 6, 10,11 and any others (esp. 11); Engaging Vision #4
The growth of the city of Edo, seat of the Tokugawa bakufu, from the 17th century, spawned a lively commoner culture in the city and along the great road, the Tôkaidô, that connected Edo with Kyoto, seat of the old imperial court, and with Osaka, a major wholesale distribution center. The sankin-kôtai (alternate attendence sysytem) was a prime catalyst for this economic, social, and cultural explosion in Edo, bringing in daimyô and their retinue from all regions and attracting a large population of artisans, merchants, and workers to provide products, cash exchange, and other services for them. Despite their officially relegated role at the bottom of an imagined four-class social system, merchants led the way in financing, defining, and consuming the arts and entertainments of the era although townspeople (chônin) of every ilk had a chance to partake in some diversions, be it at a streetshow exhibition (misemono), kite-flying, flower-viewing, firework-watching, or simply touring the town sights.
The many types of people and pleasures of Edo culture have been vividly depicted in popular, playful fiction called gesaku, witty tales (usually of the pleasure quarters) called sharebon, and illustrated satirical "pulp ficiton" called kibyôshi ("yellow-covered book") as well as in the woodblock prints known as ukiyo-e.
1. View Engaging Vision #4: "Commoner Visions: A Trip to Edo"
Follow the directions provided within Engaging Vision #4 for your interaction with the floating world of Edo.
2. Read the selections from Topics and Japanese Inn listed above.
As you read, note the occupations, preoccupations, and values, of the different types of people that you encounter.
3. Write your own original scene of historical fiction for Japanese Inn. . .
. . . that is based on a type of person or persons that you have encountered in the materials listed above and includes historically plausible actions and dialogue as well as colorful descriptions inspired by that material (textual and visual). Use Japanese Inn as a model, but don't copy it. Your scene should be between 600 and 800 words, emailed to me as Word attachment.