Chair: Terry Kawashima, Wesleyan University

Numerous instances of "exile" as a trope can be found in literature from the Heian and Kamakura periods in Japan. Narratives position the act in various ways: as a fall from power, a reason for transforming oneself into a vengeful spirit, a period of trial which enables the eventual return of the exiled figure to the location of authority with increased charisma, a poetic exercise, or a combination of the above. The implications of exile have caught the attention of modern scholars; however, there has been no thorough investigation of the trope with reference to recent theories of diasporic movement and the exilic condition. This panel seeks to break new ground in the study of Heian and Kamakura literature by carefully reconsidering the complex discursive strategies of exile and the politics/poetics of "place."

Each of the papers focuses on a specific example of exile. Richard Okada will examine of the ways in which the trope is invoked and resituated in the Tale of Genji, and how "exile" itself signifies an ontologically exclusionary practice characteristic of both Heian and contemporary discursive productions. Terry Kawashima considers the relationship between regionality, political authority, and literary capital in her investigation of the figure of Fujiwara no Sanekata; her paper highlights the extent to which the textual construction of "exile" represents a tangled, purposeful intermingling of these discourses. Finally, Edith Sarra takes the panel into the Kamakura period with her discussion of Towazugatari’s gendered and strategic references to the "tradition" of exile.

Jonathan Stockdale, University of Chicago

The theme of exile recurs throughout early Japanese texts, appearing in the earliest chronicles, poetry collections, monogatari, and of course, legal codes. More than simply reflecting the commonness of exile as a punitive act, however, many texts reveal an impulse to imaginatively explore exile, as when they narrate the banishment of gods from the heavenly plain, of celestial beings from the moon, and of political figures who turn into vengeful deities. This paper argues that the popularity of the theme of exile stems partly from its usefulness as a device for asserting, commenting upon, and at times, subverting bounderies—including not only politico-moral boundaries between sanctioned and prohibited actions, but also politico-spatial boundaries between the early Japanese court and its competing peripheries.

In this paper I engage one such narrative, The Taketori Monogatari, which is often explored as a work displaying strong continental influences from Buddhism and Daoism. By situating the Taketori alongside contemporary law codes as well as the tale’s fictional precursors, I argue that the story—concerning a princess from the moon consigned to a term on earth because of an earlier transgression (tsumi)—must also be viewed in the framework of early Japanese narratives of exile. In imagining the world of the court as the peripheral locus of the princess’ exile, and in portraying an emperor, military, and aristocracy virtually powerless before the celestial moon beings, I argue that the Taketori employs the exile motif to comment subversively on the situation at court at the time of its composition.

Richard H. Okada, Princeton University

The Heian period was marked by a number of stunning examples of exile, highlighted by the celebrated cases of Sugawara no Michizane and Minamoto Takaakira. It is not surprising, therefore, that a text that traces boundaries—between, for example, "history" and "fiction" or "center" and "periphery"—like the Tale of Genji would inscribe an instance of exile (Suma and Akashi) that clearly participates in the intertexts of both history and poetry. The Genji narrative, however, re-marks the situation of exile in any number of ways, especially the best-known Heian exilic topos of Dazaifu and for both men and women. It suggests the extent to which the experience of exile was an integral part of the imagination of Murasaki Shikibu and her father, Fujiwara no Tametoki, as well as other courtiers of the time. My aim here is to interrogate the permutations of exile in the narrative and to relate the situation to a condition of discursive practice, including that of contemporary scholarship in Japan, that is always constituted by acts of exclusion.

Terry Kawashima, Wesleyan University

What is the relationship between the discursive constructions of literary, political, and religious capital, regionality as a topos, and exile? This paper investigates this question through an examination of the figure of Fujiwara no Sanekata (?–988). Texts ranging from Konjaku monogatari, Kojidan, to Genpei seisuiki paint him as a charismatic paramour and poet known, among other events, for his association with Sei Shônagon. He became engaged in a dispute with another courtier, and as a result of his bad behavior during this skirmish, Emperor Ichijo sent him away to Mutsu to serve as provincial governor and ordered him to "go view at the utamakura ("poem-pillow") there." He is said to have met his end in that region after failing to show appropriate respect for a local deity. I seek to locate the significance of Sanekata’s exile vis-à-vis court politics, the dynamics of "regional" and "central" authorities, and the role of poetic power; I will show the ways in which the trope of exile permits both the consolidation and the fragmentation of these seemingly disparate problematics in the Heian and early Kamakura periods, and will reconsider the paradigm of kishu ryûritan ("narratives about nobility in exile") in modern scholarship.

Edith Sarra, Indiana University