Strange Transformations: The Supernatural and Early Modern Japan
Utagawa Kuniyoshi. The Shogun Yoshikado watching as a magician conjures up a battle plan for the Taira clan against their enemies, the Minamoto, ca. 1845. University of Alberta Museums Art Collection (1983.50.2). University of Alberta Museums.
Overview
Yōkai (supernatural creatures), yūrei (ghosts), and bakemono (monsters) spooked and entertained the people of Japan in the Edo Period (1600-1867). During this time of profound cultural change, urban economies flourished, the urban commoner (chōnin) class emerged, and literacy spread, generating an unprecedented mass of cultural producers and consumers, new literary and artistic genres, and innovative means of circulating literary and artistic expression. Fascination with the strange and supernatural was pronounced, and ghosts, monsters, and other strange occurrences, which previously had served moralizing ends in such predominantly religious modes of expression as setsuwa (anecdotes), were transformed into means of comparatively secular, popular entertainment. Although some supernatural entities and events depicted in Edo-Period works derived from earlier Japanese models and cultural traditions, others were adapted from continental sources, particularly Chinese ghost stories. Edo-Period representations of supernatural phenomena, in turn, have informed many modern Japanese renderings of monsters, ghosts, and strange phenomena, including ones that populate the Japanese animation, comic books, and video games that now enthrall a world-wide audience.
This three-day conference will characterize transformations of the strange and supernatural in Japanese literature and art of the Edo Period, observing transcultural and diachronic dimensions of the phenomena. The multidisciplinary gathering will draw together approximately twenty scholars from North America, Europe, and Japan who work in literature, art history, and such related fields as anthropology, history, religious studies, and media studies. Through presentations and discussion of previously circulated papers, we will begin developing a volume of scholarly essays that will articulate for an English-speaking readership the representation and reception of the strange and supernatural in the literature and art of early modern Japan. Participants will read all papers before the gathering, and when it occurs, they will discuss how best to revise the papers for production of a peer-reviewed, edited volume that will respond to growing world fascination with yōkai, yūrei, and bakemono, improve international understanding of Japan’s literature and art, and situate these modes of expression within East Asian and global cultural contexts.
Date
November 12-14, 2020
Sponsors
- Toshiba International Foundation
- The Japan Foundation
- Faculty of Arts Conference Fund, University of Alberta
- The Prince Takamado Japan Centre for Teaching and Research
- University of Alberta China Institute
- Department of East Asian Studies,University of Alberta
Conference Programme
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12: CONFERENCE DAY 1
OPENING REMARKS, 09:45
- Mr. Shigenobu Kobayashi, Consul-General of Japan, Calgary
- Ms. Yuko Shimizu, Director, Japan Foundation, Toronto
- Dr. Aya Fujiwara, Director, Prince Takamado Japan Centre
PANEL 1, 10:00-11:30
INTRODUCTION; PRECURSORS; CONCEPTUALISING HISTORY
- Walter Davis & Anne Commons, University of Alberta, “Transforming the Strange”
- Christina Laffin, University of British Columbia, “Small Balls of Fire: The Strange and the Supernatural in Court Diaries”
- Thomas Keirstead, University of Toronto, “History, with Monsters”
MONSTERS IN EDO AND ELSEWHERE
- Anne Commons, University of Alberta, “A Monstrous Poetic Procession”
- Jeffrey Newmark, University of Winnipeg, “‘People are Bakemono’--Ihara Saikaku’s Explanation of the Unexplained in Saikaku shokoku banashi”
REGIONAL AND NATIONAL IDENTITIES
- Drew Richardson, UC Santa Cruz / Kokugakuin University, “Chilling Encounters: Suzuki Bokushi’s Supernatural Tales and the Making of the Snow Country”
- Jack Stoneman, Brigham Young University, “Fantasy, Fascination, and Fear in Japanese Depictions of the Other”
- Rhiannon Paget, Ringling Museum of Art, “Demonizing the Enemy in Modern Japan”
PANEL 4, 10:00-11:30
THE SUPERNATURAL ON THE KABUKI STAGE
- Satoko Shimazaki, UCLA, “Beings of Sound: Ghosts on the Nineteenth-Century Kabuki Stage”
- Susan Klein, UC Irvine, “Serpents and Rebels in The Gold Shrine Offerings of Sarushima”
- Kirk Kanesaka, UCLA, “Viewing Kabuki from the Center Stage: How the Serpent at Dōjōji Temple Slithered into Our Hearts”
THE SUPERNATURAL IN VISUAL MEDIA
- Joshua Mostow, University of British Columbia, “Yōkai and Shunga”
- Karen Mack, Atomi Women’s University, “The Art of the Supernatural: Ghosts, Goblins, and Spooky Motifs”
- Lin Fan and Doreen Muller, Leiden University, “The Multiple Guises of Shōki in the Popular Imagination: Quelling Demons and Disease”
CHINESE GHOST STORIES AND THEIR ADAPTATIONS
- Hyuk-chan Kwon, University of Alberta, “How Scholars Recognized the Supernatural in Premodern China and Korea”
- Fumiko Jōo, Mississippi State University, “Rethinking Jiandeng xinhua in Early Modern Japan: Publication and Vernacularization”
- Matthew Fraleigh, Brandeis University, “Subjects About Which the Master did not Talk: Collections of Ghost Stories written by Nineteenth-century Japanese Sinitic Scholars”
PANEL 7, 08:30-09:40
TENGU IN WORD AND IMAGE
- Haruo Shirane, Columbia University, “Exploring the Many Faces of the Tengu in Medieval and Early Modern Japan”
- Glynne Walley, University of Oregon, “The Tengu of Mount Kurama(e): Transgression, Devotion, Self-Representation, and Yōkai in Senjafuda”
POSTWAR AND CONTEMPORARY YŌKAI RECEPTION
- Itō Shingo, Kokugakuin Tochigi Junior College, “The Illustrated Guide to Japanese Yōkai and Early Modern Yōkai Materials: Considering the Formation of Illustrated Yōkai Guides in the 1970s”
- Clara Iwasaki, University of Alberta, “Reviving the Taiwanese Supernatural: Yaoguai Taiwan and The Tag Along”
- Benjamin Whaley, University of Calgary, “Till Death Do Us Part: Supernatural Representations of Marriage and Childbirth in Atlus’ Catherine”
PANDEMICS AND PROPHETIC BEASTS
- Michael Dylan Foster, UC Davis, “Beasts of Prophecy: Amabie, Amabiko and other Yogenjū”
- Kristina Buhrman, Florida State University, “Those Who See My Form: Prophesying Beasts, Information Networks, and Visual Material Culture in Stories About Disease Amulets in Early Modern Japan”
Moderators:
- Anne Commons, University of Alberta
- Walter Davis, University of Alberta