Author : Sei Shōnagon
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 428 pages
File Size : 20,6 MB
Release : 1991
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780231073370
One of the great classics of Japanese literature, "The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon" is by far our most detailed source of factual material on life in eleventh-century Japan at the height of Heian culture.
Author : Gergana Ivanova
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 247 pages
File Size : 14,68 MB
Release : 2018-11-06
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 0231547609
An eleventh-century classic, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon is frequently paired with The Tale of Genji as one of the most important works in the Japanese canon. Yet it has also been marginalized within Japanese literature for reasons including the gender of its author, the work’s complex textual history, and its thematic and stylistic depth. In Unbinding The Pillow Book, Gergana Ivanova offers a reception history of The Pillow Book and its author from the seventeenth century to the present that shows how various ideologies have influenced the text and shaped interactions among its different versions. Ivanova examines how and why The Pillow Book has been read over the centuries, placing it in the multiple contexts in which it has been rewritten, including women’s education, literary scholarship, popular culture, “pleasure quarters,” and the formation of the modern nation-state. Drawing on scholarly commentaries, erotic parodies, instruction manuals for women, high school textbooks, and comic books, she considers its outsized role in ideas about Japanese women writers. Ultimately, Ivanova argues for engaging the work’s plurality in order to achieve a clearer understanding of The Pillow Book and the importance it has held for generations of readers, rather than limiting it to a definitive version or singular meaning. The first book-length study in English of the reception history of Sei Shōnagon, Unbinding The Pillow Book sheds new light on the construction of gender and sexuality, how women’s writing has been used to create readerships, and why ancient texts continue to play vibrant roles in contemporary cultural production.
Author : Margaret Childs
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 337 pages
File Size : 32,24 MB
Release : 2015-03-12
Category : History
ISBN : 1317515439
Voices of East Asia provides significant yet accessible readings in translation chosen to stimulate interest in the long and rich cultural history of East Asia, the countries of China, Japan, and Korea. The readings range from ancient to modern, elite to popular, and include poetry, stories, essays, and drama. Each section begins with a broad but brief overview of that country’s political and cultural history. Each reading is preceded by a concise explanation of its literary and cultural context. As expertise in East Asian studies has exploded in the West in recent decades, a novice could be overwhelmed by all the materials available now. In this volume, however, the reader will find a manageable set of texts that may be read on their own, as part of a world literature course, or as supplementary readings for an East Asian history class. As economic and political news from East Asia sweeps across the world, this anthology aims to provide a taste of the enduring traditions upon which contemporary East Asia is built, a glimpse into the hopes and fears, love and sorrow in the hearts of the people behind the headlines. This anthology will be welcomed by students and scholars of Asian history, culture, society and literature.
Author : Stephanie Anne Shelton
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 226 pages
File Size : 13,30 MB
Release : 2020-04-01
Category : Education
ISBN : 3030425568
This collection weaves together the personal narratives of a group of diverse scholars in academia in order to reflect on the ways that grief and hope matter for those situated within higher education. Each chapter explores a unique aspect of grief and loss, from experiencing a personal tragedy such as the loss of a loved one, to national and international grief such as campus shootings and refugee camp experiences, to experiencing racism and microaggressions as a woman of color in academia, to the implications of religious differences severing personal ties as an individual navigates research and academic studies. Unlike most resources examining grief, this collection pushes beyond notions of sorrow as solely individual, and instead situates moments of loss and hurt as ones that matter politically, academically, professionally, and personally. The editors and their authors offer pathways forward to academics, researchers, teachers, pedagogues, and thinkers who grapple with grief in a variety of forms, transforming this book into a critical resource of hope to those in the field of education (and others) who may feel the effects of an otherwise solitary journey of grief, to create an awareness of solidarity and support that some may not realize exists within academic circles.
Author : Yuriko Saito
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 42,90 MB
Release : 2008-01-03
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 019160853X
Everyday aesthetic experiences and concerns occupy a large part of our aesthetic life. However, because of their prevalence and mundane nature, we tend not to pay much attention to them, let alone examine their significance. Western aesthetic theories of the past few centuries also neglect everyday aesthetics because of their almost exclusive emphasis on art. In a ground-breaking new study, Yuriko Saito provides a detailed investigation into our everyday aesthetic experiences, and reveals how our everyday aesthetic tastes and judgments can exert a powerful influence on the state of the world and our quality of life. By analysing a wide range of examples from our aesthetic interactions with nature, the environment, everyday objects, and Japanese culture, Saito illustrates the complex nature of seemingly simple and innocuous aesthetic responses. She discusses the inadequacy of art-centered aesthetics, the aesthetic appreciation of the distinctive characters of objects or phenomena, responses to various manifestations of transience, and the aesthetic expression of moral values; and she examines the moral, political, existential, and environmental implications of these and other issues.
Author :
Publisher : M.E. Sharpe
Page : pages
File Size : 30,37 MB
Release : 2007-10-19
Category : Poetry
ISBN : 0765629437
Throughout history, Japanese women have excelled in poetry-- from the folk songs of the Kojiki (Record of Ancient Matters) compiled in 712 and the court poetry of the 9th to the 14th centuries, on through the age of haikai and kanshi to the 19th century, into the contemporary period when books of women's poems have created a sensation. This anthology presents examples of the work of more than 100 Japanese women poets, arranged chronologically, and of all the major verse forms: choka, tanka, haikai (haiku), kanshi (verse written in Chinese), and free verse. The poems describe not just seasonal changes and the vagaries of love--which form the thematic core of traditional Japanese poetry--but also the devastations of war, childbirth, conflicts between child-rearing and work, experiences as refugees, experiences as non-Japanese residents in Japan, and more. Sections of poetry open with headnotes, and the editor has provided explanations of terms and references for those unfamiliar with the Japanese language. Other useful tools include a glossary of poetic terms, a chronology, and a bibliography that points the reader toward other works by and about these poets. There is no comparable collection available in English. Students and anyone who appreciates poetry and Japanese culture will treasure this magnificent anthology. Editor and translator Hiroaki Sato is a past winner of the PEN America translator prize and the Japan-United States Friendship Commission's 1999 literary translation award.
Author : Penny A. Weiss
Publisher : Penn State Press
Page : 234 pages
File Size : 21,71 MB
Release : 2009
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0271035196
A discussion of women thinkers in political philosophy, and the nature of political inquiry --Provided by publisher.
Author : William M. Reddy
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 450 pages
File Size : 31,57 MB
Release : 2012-07-09
Category : History
ISBN : 0226706281
In the twelfth century, the Catholic Church attempted a thoroughgoing reform of marriage and sexual behavior aimed at eradicating sexual desire from Christian lives. Seeking a refuge from the very serious condemnations of the Church and relying on a courtly culture that was already preoccupied with honor and secrecy, European poets, romance writers, and lovers devised a vision of love as something quite different from desire. Romantic love was thus born as a movement of covert resistance. In The Making of Romantic Love: Longing and Sexuality in Europe, South Asia, and Japan, William M. Reddy illuminates the birth of a cultural movement that managed to regulate selfish desire and render it innocent—or innocent enough. Reddy strikes out from this historical moment on an international exploration of love, contrasting the medieval development of romantic love in Europe with contemporaneous eastern traditions in Bengal and Orissa, and in Heian Japan from 900-1200 CE, where one finds no trace of an opposition between love and desire. In this comparative framework, Reddy tells an appealing tale about the rise and fall of various practices of longing, underscoring the uniqueness of the European concept of sexual desire.
Author : Haruo Shirane
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 346 pages
File Size : 19,68 MB
Release : 2013-03-05
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 0231152817
"Elegant representations of nature and the four seasons populate a wide range of Japanese genres and media. In Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons, Haruo Shirane shows how, when, and why this practice developed and explicates the richly encoded social, religious, and political meanings of this imagery. Shirane discusses textual, cultivated, material, performative, and gastronomic representations of nature. He reveals how this kind of 'secondary nature, ' which flourished in Japan's urban environment, fostered and idealized a sense of harmony with the natural world just at the moment when it began to recede from view. Illuminating the deeper meaning behind Japanese aesthetics and artifacts, Shirane also clarifies the use of natural and seasonal topics as well as the changes in their cultural associations and functions across history, genre, and community over more than a millennium. In this book, the four seasons are revealed to be as much a cultural construction as a reflection of the physical world."--Back cover.
Author : Hiroaki Sato
Publisher : Abrams
Page : 562 pages
File Size : 45,75 MB
Release : 2012-03-06
Category : History
ISBN : 1468301373
This authoritative history of Japan’s elite warrior class separates fact from myth as it chronicles centuries of samurai combat, culture, and legend. In Legends of the Samurai, Hiroaki Sato examines the history of these medieval Japanese warriors, as well as the many long-standing myths that surround them. In doing so, he presents an authentic and revealing picture of these men and their world. Sato’s masterful translations of original samurai tales, laws, dicta, reports, and arguments are accompanied by insightful commentary. With incisive historical research, this volume chronicles the changing ethos of the Japanese warrior from the samurai's historical origins to his rise to political power. A fascinating look at Japanese history as seen through the evolution of the samurai, Legends of the Samurai stands as the ultimate authority on its subject.
