Organizer: Stephen H. Dodd, SOAS, University of London
Chair: Paul Anderer, Columbia University
Discussant: Nicola Liscutin, German Institute for Japanese Studies
There is an ongoing and strongly contested debate on the supposedly opposing attractions of literary theory and close textual analysis, an important debate since it effects the way in which various scholars’ research is evaluated by their peers. This panel aims to highlight the unfeasibility of a simple distinction of these two approaches to any reading of literary texts by suggesting that, in fact, there are stronger links between the two than may be apparent at first. Specifically, the four panelists will draw on Japanese literary works from both modern and classical traditions and attempt to ground them in their particular social and historical environments; trying, in other words, to locate a native specificity. On the other hand, it would be entirely wrong to ignore the needs and assumptions of contemporary academics which make these literary works still seem worthy of study for the present day, since this would mistakenly assume that texts can be understood in a cultural and temporal vacuum. Consideration will therefore also be given to more current theories emerging from the West that have been applied to these various works so as to consider how far an accommodation can be made between these different approaches. More generally, this panel intends to promote a wider discussion of the ambiguities surrounding an often overly simplistic distinction between theory and "old-fashioned" close reading.
Literary Networks and Partisan Compilers: Shunzei and the Karin’en Salon
Ivo Smits, Leiden University
The notion that imperial anthologies in Japan functioned very much as a forum to present poets from the school of the compiler is not a novel one. This phenomenon is linked to the development of factionalism in the early medieval poetic scene. Factionalism, in turn, is tied to the emergence of poetic schools (ie). The new attention to such schools, however, tends to overlook the fact that the playing ground for poets was larger than just the schools or imperial poetic circles. In an attempt to demonstrate the fluidity of the literary field, this paper will focus on an inclusive twelfth-century poetic salon called the "Poetic Forest Garden" (Karin’en). We shall see that a monumental figure from literary history like Fujiwara no Shunzei (1114–1204) formed many of his poetic ties here and that the networks forged through this salon transcended narrow notions of schools and would be reflected in the imperial anthology compiled by Shunzei in the 1180s. Building on concepts from the sociology of literature, it will be made clear that anthologies functioned both as literary texts and as reflections of poetic networks.
Reading Between the Lines of Poetry: Gyokuyôshû and the Politics of Imperial Anthologies
Stefania Burk, University of California, Berkeley
The court commissioned twenty-one imperial waka anthologies between 900 and 1450. The first eight form the core of the Japanese poetic canon and have been studied, scrutinized, and variously praised since their own times. Each was compiled under an acute awareness of those that preceded it and under a unique set of political and other non-poetic circumstances. The sociohistorical contexts of these works have received greater attention in recent years; however, these considerations are often limited to the "historical background" variety. By taking a closer took at the production of these works we see that the imperially sponsored act of anthologizing—the selection and arrangement of poetry by poets separated by centuries and station—was in itself an active (re-)writing of history (poetic and sociopolitical). Thus, the context—or rather a context—is written into the text, and the twenty-one anthologies may be read as a continuing and continually renegotiated narrative that encourages, if not demands, that we confront these works neither in isolation nor solely as repositories of the poetic canon. A reading of the fourteenth imperial anthology, Gyokuyôshû (a collection of jeweled leaves, 1313) and a contemporary critique of this work entitled Kaen rensho kotogaki (A comment signed by a circle of fellows in the poetic garden, 1315) will show how extraliterary dynamics not only informed the production of these anthologies, but that these dynamics and the networks in which they operated are inscribed onto these canonical poetic texts themselves.
A Time and a Place: Kunikida Doppo and the Furusato Ideal in Meiji
Stephen H. Dodd, SOAS, University of London
Edward Soja notes that space, time and matter, which "delineate and encompass the essential qualities of the physical world," should not be perceived as discrete elements but as part of a more general material process in which all three are integral to each other. He is particularly keen to highlight the spacial dimension which has been largely eclipsed during the modern period by an emphasis on the temporal (historical) process. His work can be related to the writings of Kunikida Doppo (1871–1908), whose literary articulation of the native place (furusato) emerged from discontent with Meiji urban life. In his story, Kikyorai (1901), the furusato should be seen less as a preexisting empty site where actions simply take place than as part of a transformative process whereby spatiality (furusato) temporality (history) and social being (writer) inform and reproduce each other. The very contours of the furusato are shaped by doubts that remained after his unsatisfactory encounter with religion and politics. But the historical moment remains significant; Doppo’s perception of an idyllic furusato untouched by modern life is actually inextricably related to experiences as a new Meiji man, thus indicating the extent to which "foreign" and "native" views have already become blurred. In short, the question is how to link up a writer’s personal aspirations and ideals with the environment into which he is born, and how to identify such experience in the physical landscape reproduced in his literature.
Scenes from the Literary Field: Pierre Bourdieu and Japan
Mark Morris, Cambridge University
Bourdieu’s reflexive sociology of the literary and cultural fields represents a remarkably sustained intellectual enquiry into the genesis and transformation of artistic practice. His studies have worked consistently to erode dichotomies such as theory versus practice or subjective versus objective interpretation. In light of the panel’s concerns, this essay will attempt to outline the reception of Bourdieu’s work on the part of Japanese intellectuals and critics (and perhaps consider how, via Bourdieu, one can make sense of the seemingly inevitable caesura which the Japanese intellectual field inserts between these two nouns) and consider as well some of the seminars and lectures presented by him in Japan. A further concern will be the implications of the work of Bourdieu and contributors to his Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales for understanding the field of literature in Japan, classical, modern and contemporary.