Borders, Performance, and Deities
Symposium
Between Worlds: Borders, Performance, & Deities
境界、芸能、神仏
Sponsored by Center for Cultural Heritage and Texts at Nagoya University and Department of Religion, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture, Center for Buddhism and East Asian Religions, and Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life at Columbia University, NYC.
Friday—Saturday, 15—16 March, 403 Kent Hall, Columbia University
Preregistration required. Please click here to register.
In recent years, scholars in the fields of pre-modern Japanese religions and literature have become increasingly aware of both the ubiquity and bewildering variety of spirits that populated the interpenetrating spheres of “this world” (kono yo), “alien worlds” (ikai, including heavens, hells, and imagined countries), and the world of the afterlife (ano yo)—all of which constituted the pre-modern Japanese imaginaire. Although it was long assumed that ritualists at Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines served as the primary intermediaries and border guards between these worlds, it is now clear that such religious professionals worked closely with—and served as models for—a wide range of performers (poets, singers, dancers, epic singers, storytellers, actors, musicians) that regularly interacted with the kami, Buddhist deities, demons and vengeful spirits in the quotidian spaces of ancient and medieval Japan. This conference examines the emergence of new genres, ritual and performance at the borders, and interstices between these worlds, with special attention to the role of body, voice, and sound in attracting and dispelling spirits across multiple realms. The conference also draws attention to the different kinds of “border-crossing” and trespassing of both social and gender borders (such as Buddhist prohibitions against women and interaction with outcasts).
Schedule
Please note that this schedule may be modified at our discretion.March 15 (Friday)
9:30AM Welcome: Haruo Shirane (Columbia University)9:35-10:20AM Opening Speech: Bernard Faure (Columbia University), “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Coasting Through Demonic Islands”
Session 1: “Cities, Roads, and Borders” 都市、道、境界
10:30-10:45AM Michael Como (Columbia), “Roadways, Shrines and Stowaways in Ancient Japan”
10:45-11:00AM Bryan Lowe (Vanderbilt), “Connectivity and Its Discontents: Roads and Religion in Ancient Japan”
11:00-11:10AM Discussant: Samuel Morse (Amherst)
11:10-11:40 AM Discussion
Session 2: “Poetry, Deities, and Pacification of Spirits,” 歌、神仏、鎮魂
12:40-12:55PM Hirano Tae (Seikei), “Kami Poems and Buddhist Poems in Imperial Waka Anthologies” (in Japanese) 「勅撰和歌集における神祇歌・釈教歌」
12:55-1:10PM Yoshino Tomomi (Chuo), “Pacification of the Dead in Imperial Waka Anthologies: Saigyō, Jien, and the Shin kokin wakashū” (in Japanese) 「勅撰和歌集における鎮魂――西行・慈円と『新古今和歌集』」
1:25-1:40PM Discussant: Haruo Shirane (Columbia University)
1:40-2:25PM Discussion
Session 3: PhD/Post-Doc Panel on Related Topics
2:35-2:50PM Andrew Macomber (Columbia), “Addressing Affliction in a Defiled Capital: Buddhist Moxibustion and the Clinical Encounter in late Heian Japan”
2:50-3:05PM Alessandro Poletto (Columbia), “Incantation, Precepts, Ijutsu: The Therapeutic Activities of Buddhist Monks in Gyokuyō and Meigetsuki”
3:05-3:20PM Matsuyama Yūko (Nagoya), “The Cultural Meaning of Setsuwa Passed Down Through the Ages: On the Tale of Ono no Takamura’s Journey to Hell and Back” (in Japanese) 「説話が時代を超えて伝承される文化的意味について―小野篁冥界往来譚を中心に―」
3:20-3:35PM Discussant: Jackie Stone (Princeton University)
Session 4: “Women, Bodies, and Borders” 女性、身体、境界
3:50-4:05PM Koida Tomoko (NIJL), “Aging Body in the Medieval Japanese Tale ‘Tokiwa as an Old Woman’” (in Japanese) 「 『常盤(ときわ)の嫗(うば)』の老いと身体」
4:05-4:20PM Lucia Dolce (SOAS University of London), “Liminal Bodies: Transformative Practices in Medieval Consecration Rituals”
4:20-4:30PM Discussant: Max Moerman (Barnard/Columbia)
4:30-5:00PM Discussion
March 16 (Saturday)
9:30-10:00AM Haruo Shirane, “Borders, Performance, and Gods: Oguri hangan and Social Liminality”
Session 5: “Dreams, Deities, and Borders” 夢、神仏、境界
10:00-10:15AM Araki Hiroshi (Nichibunken), “The Formation of the Image of the Dragon Palace in Akashi: A Dream Linking
the Genji monogatari and the Heike monogatari” (in Japanese) 「 明石における龍宮イメージの形成―『源氏物語』と『平家物語』をつなぐ夢―」
10:15-10:30AM Elizabeth Oyler (Pittsburgh), “Collapsing Borders in the noh play Nue” 「謡曲『鵺』における境界の崩れ」
10:30-10:45AM Chikamoto Kensuke (Nagoya), “Cosmology of the Liminal Border Embodied in Dreams and Divine Oracles:
The Stories Found in the Kasuga Gongen genki e as a Starting Point” (in Japanese) 「夢と託宣の体現する境界性のコスモロジー―『春日権現験記絵』所収話を端緒として― 」
10:45-11:00AM Discussant: Kobayashi Kenji (NIJL)
11:00-11:45AM Discussion
Session 6: “Life-Death, Pilgrimage, and Other Worlds” 生死、遍歴、異界
12:45-1:00PM Yamamoto Satomi (Kyoritsu), “Reconsidering the “Six Path Paintings” of the Rengeō-in Repository : Hekija e as the Asura Realm” (in Japanese) 「「蓮華王院宝蔵「六道絵」の新解釈―阿修羅道としての「辟邪絵」
1:00-1:15PM Miriam Chusid (Columbia), “Beyond Borders: Hell Images and the Ōjōyōshū in Medieval Japan” 「境界を越えて：中世日本の地獄絵と『往生要集』」」
1:15-1:30PM Abe Mika (Nagoya), “The Nyoin Who Crossed Borders: Sen’yōmon’in as the Creator of Religious
Space at Borders” (in Japanese) 「 女院(にょいん)は越境する―境界の宗教空間を生みだす宣(せん)陽門院(ようもんいん)」
1:30-1:45PM Discussant: Hank Glassman (Haverford)
1:45-2:30PM Discussion
2:40-3:25PM Closing Speech with introduction by Brian Ruppert (Bates College)
Abe Yasuro (Nagoya University), “The Emergence of the Medieval Borders of Religious Space: Tsurugaoka Hachimangū, Ippen and Masked Processions” (in Japanese) (in Japanese) 「立ち現われる中世の境界宗教空間―鶴岡八幡宮、一遍、面掛行列―」
Co-organizers: Haruo Shirane (Columbia), Michael Como (Columbia), Abe Yasuro (Nagoya), Chikamoto Kensuke (Nagoya). Co-Sponsors: Center for Cultural Heritage and Texts at Nagoya University and Department of Religion, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture, Center for Buddhism and East Asian Religions, and Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life at Columbia University.
To preregister, please go to: https://events.eventzilla.net/e/borders-performance-and-deities-2138727363
For questions, contact Yoshiko Niiya, yn11@columbia.edu