Minutes for Feb. 7th & 14th, Meeting Notice for 21st & following
Dear History Champions,
We'll be meeting this coming Wednesday, February 21st and the 28th following from 6 - 8 PM at the Conference Center in the Memorial Park, 3rd floor, Seminar Room #3. On March 6th, however, we'll forgo our weekly gathering in deference to the quarterly Japan-America Society of Hiroshima dinner, which will be held that night at the Sheraton from 6 PM (If you'd like to join that, send a message before the R.S.V.P. date of the 20th to:
広島日米協会
https://www.hnbk.jp/
or DM me). The price is reasonable considering what you get, and is a particularly good deal if you happen to be non-Japanese or a student. If you want to attend, send an e-mail stating your intention to do so to: Hiroshima Japan-America Society 広島日米協会 <hnbk@fch.ne.jp> For foreigners, membership in the organization is not limited to Yankees, and the yearly fee is but ¥1,000. If you can't make this one, in another 3 months there'll be another, etc., etc. It's a chance to socialize and network.
Last week, we continued our roundtable reading of The Rise of West Lake: A Cultural Landmark in the Song Dynasty and got up to page 177 of the text (page 200 of the file). You can download the .pdf of the book from that link, or DM me if you can't access the Files tab of our Facebook Group Site.
Why we are reading about a lake in Hangzhou, China: Because, as the title of Shukkeien Garden means "miniature", so is West Lake the body of water that the pond in the Geishu-han ceremonial tea garden was a scaled-down representation of. We've been surprised to discover how prevalent the landscape tropes of this Southern Song Dynasty Capital City are in Japanese paintings; how often the poetry which references 西湖 Xi Hu shows up in Edo Elite Culture; and how the uses the lake was put to, from Buddhist worship to courtesan courting, were mimicked on this side of the Sea of Japan. When composing narratives about Japanese cultural sites, one must of needs make reference to the Literary Sinitic Cosmography shared, and the Garden is a wellspring for such narrative constituents.
We'll be polishing off this text soon, and so the question arises, "What direction to turn to next?" Three possibilities have suggested themselves:
1) A Cultural History of Peace in the Modern Age, which can be found at the link. The meaning of Peace in the Memorial Park has been circumscribed to exclude everything save the absolute abolition of Nuclear Bombs. In other places, and at other times, Peace means something else.
2) Let's go back to Itsukushima.
Women and the Heike Nokyo.The Dragon Princess, the Jewel and the Buddha.Abe.Impressions.2019.pdf
This article details the beating heart of Miyajima. For our purposes, it would be nice to have a manuscript which explained the significance of the 33 scrolls wound around crystal, which the wooden pier was built to honor and hold. While our previous readings, notably Heather Blair's 2013 article in the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies (available for download at the link there) provided a serviceable biography of Kiyomori Taira, we lack a detailed description of the scroll's text and illustration. Ryuchi Abe's sixty odd page article for the Japanese Art Society of America copiously references the wealth of Japanese language scholarship about the scrolls, making a fraction of it accessible to Anglophones. Formerly of Columbia University, Abe is now a Prof. of Japanese Religions at Harvard. You'll find the text replete with samples from the illustrations which accompany the text.
As its size is beyond that allowed for attachments, the link above takes you to a Google Drive from whence it can be downloaded. If permissions are not immediately granted, they soon will be; likewise, if you can't access that virtual repository, another, Dropbox, can be brought to bear so that you can have a copy of the text. DM me with any issues.
3) When we were doing our research into Seto Inland Sea Piracy, we delved into the history of the Ouchi clan via Sangnam Lee's Ph.D. thesis. It's now been turned into an article in Artibus Asiae, "The Joseon Court and the Ouchi Clan: A Case Study of Interregional Circulation of Material Culture" You can download the .pdf here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1193692508103055/permalink/1663590404446594/
We could revisit the material in this more polished form. There were many take-aways from Lee's scholarship, including surprising connections between Japanese Domain Lords and Korean Princes; and a donated copy of the Goryeo Tripitaka, printed from carved woodblocks. This complete collection of the Buddhist scriptures sat in Miyajima beside the Heike Nokyo until Imperial Age State Shintoists kicked it the hell out in the nineteen-thirties, taking us one step closer to the modernist boat dock. I'd certainly like to return to the Mori and Ouchi clan histories, and I link the text here for those of you who have similar inclinations.
You can probably tell I'm leaning toward option two. The 平家納経 Heike Nokyo dates from 1164, which is when Kiyomori Taira placed the scrolls inside of the temple he had built to house them. Its survival to this day testifies to the esteem in which it was held. What do you think?
In addition to our Wednesday evening meetings, there's also a workshop session every Wed. at the Port Cloud from 3 to 5 PM. Usually on Saturdays, too, at the same time and place, but not this Sat. the 24th, as I have a tour.
Last Thursday the 8th a handful of us went out to Iwakuni for the community conversation series hosted by the Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studies. Prof. Yasushi Watanabe from Keio University gave a talk on Japanese Soft Power and Public Diplomacy, and a lively discussion ensued between members of the base community around subjects like Otaku culture . . . which apparently has become a thing stateside, though the meaning now differs from the original Japanese connotation.
The week before that, on the 31st, we spent our Wednesday evening session reading "Anti-Americanism in Japan" by Prof. Watanabe. You can download the text from that link to our Facebook Group Site.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1193692508103055/permalink/1663637031108598/
Our weekly roundtable reading and discussion sessions offer an ideal opportunity for those who want to take their interactions with the new wave of tourists to a whole other level.
Yours with a splayed middle and index finger,
John Mensing
090-2861-0828
PS: If you'd like to be removed from this list, please do let me know.