Download or read book Rearranging the Landscape of the Gods written by Sarah Thal and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2005-02 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description

Download or read book Beyond the Great Wave written by James King and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2010 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Japanese landscape print has had a tremendous influence on Western art of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In Japan and in the West it is often seen as the dominant form in Ukiyo-e, pictures from the floating world. And yet for all its importance, it is a genre whose history has never been written. Beyond The Great Wave is a survey or overview for all those interested in discovering the inner dynamics of one of art history's most remarkable achievements. However, it is also a quest narrative, in which landscapes and notions of Japan as a homeland are intertwined and interconnected. Although there has never been a book-length study of the Japanese landscape print in either Japanese or English, a great deal has been written about the two giants of the genre, Hokusai and Hiroshige. From what traditions did these two nineteenth-century artists emerge? Who were their predecessors? What influence, if any, did they have on other Ukiyo-e artists? Can their influence be seen in the shin-hanga and sôsaku-hanga artists of the twentieth century? This book addresses these issues, but it also looks at a number of other factors, such as the growth of tourism in nineteenth-century Japan, necessary for understanding this genre.

Download or read book Mountain Water Rock God written by Luke Whitmore and published by University of California Press. This book was released on 2018-11-27 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. In Mountain, Water, Rock, God, Luke Whitmore situates the disastrous flooding that fell on the Hindu Himalayan shrine of Kedarnath in 2013 within a broader religious and ecological context. Whitmore explores the longer story of this powerful realm of the Hindu god Shiva through a holistic theoretical perspective that integrates phenomenological and systems-based approaches to the study of religion, pilgrimage, place, and ecology. He argues that close attention to places of religious significance offers a model for thinking through connections between ritual, narrative, climate destabilization, tourism, development, and disaster, and he shows how these critical components of human life in the twenty-first century intersect in the human experience of place.

Download or read book Emplacing a Pilgrimage written by Barbara Ambros and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-03-23 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Towering over the Kanto Plain, the sacred mountain Ōyama (literally, “Big Mountain”) has loomed large over the religious landscape of early modern Japan.By the Edo period (1600–1868), the revered peak had undergone a transformation from secluded spiritual retreat to popular pilgrimage destination. Its status as a regional landmark among its devotees was boosted by its proximity to the shogunal capital and the wide appeal of its amalgamation of Buddhism, Shinto, mountain asceticism, and folk beliefs. The influence of the Ōyama cult—the intersecting beliefs, practices, and infrastructure associated with the sacred site—was not lost on the ruling Tokugawa shogunate, which saw in the pilgrimage an opportunity to reinforce the communal ideals and social structures that the authorities espoused.Barbara Ambros provides a detailed narrative history of the mountain and its place in contemporary society and popular religion by focusing on the development of the Ōyama cult and its religious, political, and socioeconomic contexts. Richly illustrated and carefully researched, this study emphasizes the importance of “site” or “region” in considering the multifaceted nature and complex history of religious practice in Tokugawa Japan."

Download or read book Prophet Motive written by Nancy K. Stalker and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2007-10-31 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the 1910s to the mid-1930s, the flamboyant and gifted spiritualist Deguchi Onisaburô (1871–1948) transformed his mother-in-law’s small, rural religious following into a massive movement, eclectic in content and international in scope. Through a potent blend of traditional folk beliefs and practices like divination, exorcism, and millenarianism, an ambitious political agenda, and skillful use of new forms of visual and mass media, he attracted millions to Oomoto, his Shintoist new religion. Despite its condemnation as a heterodox sect by state authorities and the mainstream media, Oomoto quickly became the fastest-growing religion in Japan of the time. In telling the story of Onisaburô and Oomoto, Nancy Stalker not only gives us the first full account in English of the rise of a heterodox movement in imperial Japan, but also provides new perspectives on the importance of "charismatic entrepreneurship" in the success of new religions around the world. She makes the case that these religions often respond to global developments and tensions (imperialism, urbanization, consumerism, the diffusion of mass media) in similar ways. They require entrepreneurial marketing and management skills alongside their spiritual authority if their groups are to survive encroachments by the state and achieve national/international stature. Their drive to realize and extend their religious view of the world ideally stems from a "prophet" rather than "profit" motive, but their activity nevertheless relies on success in the modern capitalist, commercial world. Unlike many studies of Japanese religion during this period, Prophet Motive works to dispel the notion that prewar Shinto was monolithically supportive of state initiatives and ideology.

Download or read book From Country to Nation written by Gideon Fujiwara and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-15 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Country to Nation tracks the emergence of the modern Japanese nation in the nineteenth century through the history of some of its local aspirants. It explores how kokugaku (Japan studies) scholars envisioned their place within Japan and the globe, while living in a castle town and domain far north of the political capital. Gideon Fujiwara follows the story of Hirao Rosen and fellow scholars in the northeastern domain of Tsugaru. On discovering a newly "opened" Japan facing the dominant Western powers and a defeated Qing China, Rosen and other Tsugaru intellectuals embraced kokugaku to secure a place for their local "country" within the broader nation and to reorient their native Tsugaru within the spiritual landscape of an Imperial Japan protected by the gods. Although Rosen and his fellows celebrated the rise of Imperial Japan, their resistance to the Western influence and modernity embraced by the Meiji state ultimately resulted in their own disorientation and estrangement. By analyzing their writings—treatises, travelogues, letters, poetry, liturgies, and diaries—alongside their artwork, Fujiwara reveals how this socially diverse group of scholars experienced the Meiji Restoration from the peripheries. Using compelling firsthand accounts, Fujiwara tells the story of the rise of modern Japan, from the perspective of local intellectuals who envisioned their local "country" within a nation that emerged as an empire of the modern world.

Download or read book The Chaos and Cosmos of Kurosawa Tokiko written by Laura Nenzi and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2015-02-28 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Chaos and Cosmos of Kurosawa Tokiko is the story of a self-described "base-born nobody" who tried to change the course of Japanese history. Kurosawa Tokiko (1806–1890), a commoner from rural Mito domain, was a poet, teacher, oracle, and political activist. In 1859 she embraced the xenophobic loyalist faction (known for the motto "revere the emperor, expel the barbarians") and traveled to Kyoto to denounce the shogun's policies before the emperor. She was arrested, taken to Edo's infamous Tenmachō prison, and sentenced to banishment. In her later years, having crossed the Tokugawa-Meiji divide, Tokiko became an elementary school teacher and experienced firsthand the modernizing policies of the new government. After her death she was honored with court rank for her devotion to the loyalist cause. Tokiko's story reflects not only some of the key moments in Japan's transition to the modern era, but also some of its lesser-known aspects, thereby providing us with a fresh narrative of the late-Tokugawa crisis, the collapse of the shogunate, and the rise of the Meiji state. The peculiar combination of no-nonsense single-mindedness and visionary flights of imagination evinced in her numerous diaries and poetry collections nuances our understanding of activism and political consciousness among rural nonelites by blurring the lines between the rational and the irrational, focus and folly. Tokiko's use of prognostication and her appeals to cosmic forces point to the creative paths some women constructed to take part in political debates and epitomize the resourcefulness required to preserve one's identity in the face of changing times. In the early twentieth century, Tokiko was reimagined in the popular press and her story was rewritten to offset fears about female autonomy and to boost local and national agendas. These distorted and romanticized renditions offer compelling examples of the politicization of the past and of the extent to which present anxieties shape historical memory. That Tokiko was unimportant and her loyalist mission a failure is irrelevant. What is significant is that through her life story we are able to discern the ordinary individual in the midst of history. By putting an extra in the spotlight, The Chaos and Cosmos of Kurosawa Tokiko offers a new script for the drama that unfolded on the stage of late-Tokugawa and early Meiji history.

Download or read book The Cambridge World History Volume 6 The Construction of a Global World 1400 1800 CE Part 2 Patterns of Change written by Jerry H. Bentley and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-04-09 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The era from 1400 to 1800 saw intense biological, commercial, and cultural exchanges, and the creation of global connections on an unprecedented scale. Divided into two books, Volume 6 of the Cambridge World History series considers these critical transformations. The first book examines the material and political foundations of the era, including global considerations of the environment, disease, technology, and cities, along with regional studies of empires in the eastern and western hemispheres, crossroads areas such as the Indian Ocean, Central Asia, and the Caribbean, and sites of competition and conflict, including Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Mediterranean. The second book focuses on patterns of change, examining the expansion of Christianity and Islam, migrations, warfare, and other topics on a global scale, and offering insightful detailed analyses of the Columbian exchange, slavery, silver, trade, entrepreneurs, Asian religions, legal encounters, plantation economies, early industrialism, and the writing of history.

Download or read book The Cambridge World History written by Jerry H. Bentley and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-04-09 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comprehensive account of the intense biological, commercial, and cultural exchanges, and the creation of global connections, between 1400 and 1800.

Download or read book Materials and Meaning in Contemporary Japanese Architecture written by Dana Buntrock and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-13 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this beautiful and perceptive book, Dana Buntrock examines, for the first time, how tradition is incorporated into contemporary Japanese architecture. Looking at the work of five architects – Fumihiko Maki, Terunobu Fujimori, Ryoji Suzuki, Kengo Kuma, and Jun Aoki – Buntrock reveals the aims influencing many wonderful works barely known in the West; the sensual side of Japanese architecture borne out of approaches often less concerned with professionalism than with people and place. The buildings described in this book illustrate an architecture that embraces uniqueness, expressing unusual stories in the rough outlines of rammed earth and rust, and demonstrating new paths opening up for architectural practice today. For some, these examples will offer new insight into expressions of tradition in Japanese architecture; for others, this book offers inspiration for their own efforts to assert the unique heritage of other regions around the world. Compelling, insightful and groundbreaking, this book is essential for everyone studying Japanese architecture and anyone trying to invoke narrative and tradition in contemporary design.

Download or read book Pilgrimage in the Marketplace written by Ian Reader and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-11 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of pilgrimage often centres itself around miracles and spontaneous populist activities. While some of these activities and stories may play an important role in the emergence of potential pilgrimage sites and in helping create wider interest in them, this book demonstrates that the dynamics of the marketplace, including marketing and promotional activities by priests and secular interest groups, create the very consumerist markets through which pilgrimages become established and successful – and through which the ‘sacred’ as a category can be sustained. By drawing on examples from several contexts, including Japan, India, China, Vietnam, Europe, and the Muslim world, author Ian Reader evaluates how pilgrimages may be invented, shaped, and promoted by various interest groups. In so doing he draws attention to the competitive nature of the pilgrimage market, revealing that there are rivalries, borrowed ideas, and alliances with commercial and civil agencies to promote pilgrimages. The importance of consumerism is demonstrated, both in terms of consumer goods/souvenirs and pilgrimage site selection, rather than the usual depictions of consumerism as tawdry disjunctions on the ‘sacred.’ As such this book reorients studies of pilgrimage by highlighting not just the pilgrims who so often dominate the literature, but also the various other interest groups and agencies without whom pilgrimage as a phenomenon would not exist.

Download or read book Pilgrimage and Political Economy written by Simon Coleman and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2018-07-20 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pilgrimage has always had a tendency to follow—and sometimes create—trade routes. This volume explores how wider factors behind transnational and global mobility have impacted on pilgrimage activity across the world, and examines the ways in which pilgrimage relates to migration, diaspora, and political cooperation or conflict across nation-states. Furthermore, it brings together case studies that explore forms of mobility where pilgrimage is juxtaposed, complements, or is in intimate association with other forms of movement.

Download or read book Shinto Shrines written by Joseph Cali and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2012-11-30 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of Japan’s two great religious traditions, Shinto is far less known and understood in the West. Although there are a number of books that explain the religion and its philosophy, this work is the first in English to focus on sites where Shinto has been practiced since the dawn of Japanese history. In an extensive introductory section, authors Joseph Cali and John Dougill delve into the fascinating aspects of Shinto, clarifying its relationship with Buddhism as well as its customs, symbolism, and pilgrimage routes. This is followed by a fully illustrated guide to 57 major Shinto shrines throughout Japan, many of which have been designated World Heritage Sites or National Treasures. In each comprehensive entry, the authors highlight important spiritual and physical features of the individual shrines (architecture, design, and art), associated festivals, and enshrined gods. They note the prayers offered and, for travelers, the best times to visit. With over 125 color photographs and 50 detailed illustrations of archetypical Shinto objects and shrines, this volume will enthrall not only those interested in religion but also armchair travelers and visitors to Japan alike. Whether you are planning to visit the actual sites or take a virtual journey, this guide is the perfect companion. Visit Joseph Cali’s Shinto Shrines of Japan: The Blog Guide: http://shintoshrinesofjapanblogguide.blogspot.jp/. Visit John Dougill’s Green Shinto, “dedicated to the promotion of an open, international and environmental Shinto”: http://www.greenshinto.com/wp/.

Download or read book A Malleable Map written by Kären Wigen and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2010-05-27 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kären Wigen probes regional cartography, choerography, and statecraft to redefine restoration (ishin) in modern Japanese history. As developed here, that term designates not the quick coup d’état of 1868 but a three-centuries-long project of rehabilitating an ancient map for modern purposes. Drawing on a wide range of geographical documents from Shinano (present-day Nagano Prefecture), Wigen argues that both the founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate (1600–1868) and the reformers of the Meiji era (1868–1912) recruited the classical map to serve the cause of administrative reform. Nor were they alone; provincial men of letters played an equally critical role in bringing imperial geography back to life in the countryside. To substantiate these claims, Wigen traces the continuing career of the classical court’s most important unit of governance—the province—in central Honshu.

Download or read book Buddhism and Iconoclasm in East Asia written by Fabio Rambelli and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2012-09-06 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a cross-cultural study of the multifaceted relations between Buddhism, its materiality, and instances of religious violence and destruction in East Asia, which remains a vast and still largely unexplored field of inquiry. Material objects are extremely important not just for Buddhist practice, but also for the conceptualization of Buddhist doctrines; yet, Buddhism developed ambivalent attitudes towards such need for objects, and an awareness that even the most sacred objects could be destroyed. After outlining Buddhist attitudes towards materiality and its vulnerability, the authors propose a different and more inclusive definition of iconoclasm-a notion that is normally not employed in discussions of East Asian religions. Case studies of religious destruction in East Asia are presented, together with a new theoretical framework drawn from semiotics and cultural studies, to address more general issues related to cultural value, sacredness, and destruction, in an attempt to understand instances in which the status and the meaning of the sacred in any given culture is questioned, contested, and ultimately denied, and how religious institutions react to those challenges.

Download or read book Recent Social Environmental and Cultural Issues in East Asian Societies written by Merviö, Mika Markus and published by IGI Global. This book was released on 2019-11-15 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: East Asian societies continue to react to developments occurring in the Western part of the world as well as influence development elsewhere due to the global reach of East Asian economies and the increased political weight of East Asian societies. These systems have distinctive features often connected with local social and cultural traditions. However, these traditions are constantly being reinterpreted, and the changing meanings attached to them must be taken into account. Recent Social, Environmental, and Cultural Issues in East Asian Societies is an essential research book that explores various social, environmental, and cultural issues challenging modern East Asian cultures and their implications on society. Featuring a wide range of topics such as local identity, social risk, and government policy, this book is ideal for researchers, policymakers, sociologists, managers, anthropologists, politicians, diplomats, academicians, and students.

Download or read book The Ashgate Research Companion to Modern Imperial Histories written by John Marriott and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-23 with total page 758 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by leading scholars, this collection provides a comprehensive and authoritative overview of modern empires. Spanning the era of modern imperial history from the early sixteenth century to the present, it challenges both the rather insular focuses on specific experiences, and gives due attention to imperial formations outside the West including the Russian, Japanese, Mughal, Ottoman and Chinese. The companion is divided into three broad sections. Part I - Times - surveys the three main eras of modern imperialism. The first was that dominated by the settlement impulse, with migrants - many voluntarily and many more by force - making new lives in the colonies. This impulse gave way, most especially in the nineteenth century, to a period of busy and rapid expansion which was less likely to promote new settlement, and in which colonists more frequently saw their sojourn in colonial lands as temporary and related to the business mostly of governance and trade. Lastly, in the twentieth century in particular, empires began to fail and to fall. Part II - Spaces - studies the principal imperial formations of the modern world. Each chapter charts the experience of a specific empire while at the same time placing it within the complex patterns of wider imperial constellations. The individual chapters thus survey the broad dynamics of change within the empires themselves and their relationships with other imperial formations, and reflect critically on the ways in which these topics have been approached in the literature. In Part III - Themes - scholars think critically about some of the key features of imperial expansion and decline. These chapters are brief and many are provocative. They reflect the current state of the field, and suggest new lines of inquiry which may follow from more comparative perspectives on empire. The broad range of themes captures the vitality and diversity of contemporary scholarship on questions of empire and colonialism, encompassing political, economic and cultural processes central to the formation and maintenance of empires as well as institutions, ideologies and social categories that shaped the lives both of those implementing and those experiencing the force of empire. In these pages the reader will find the slave and the criminal, the merchant and the maid, the scientist and the artist alongside the structures which sustained their lives and their livelihoods. Overall, the companion emphasises the diversity of imperial experience and process. Comprehensive in its scope, it draws attention to the particularities of individual empires, rather than over-generalising as if all empires, at all times, and in all places, behaved in a similar manner. It is this contingent and historical specificity that enables us to explore in expansive ways precisely what constituted the modern empire.