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Often considered an exotic garment of "traditional Japan," the kimono is in fact a vibrant part of Japanese modernity, playing an integral role in literature and film throughout the twentieth century. Reading the Kimono in Twentieth-Century Japanese Literature and Film is the first extended study to offer new ways of interpreting textual and visual narratives through "kimono language"--what these garments communicate within their literary, historical, and cultural contexts. Kimonos on the page and screen do much more than create verisimilitude or function as one-dimensional symbols. They go beyond simply indicating the wearer's age, gender, class, and taste; as eloquent, heterogeneous object...
The volume is aimed at preserving invaluable knowledge about Ainu, a language-isolate previously spoken in Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and Kurils, which is now on the verge of extinction. Ainu was not a written language, but it possesses a huge documented stock of oral literature, yet is significantly under-described in terms of grammar. It is the only non-Japonic language of Japan and is typologically different not only from Japanese but also from other Northeast Asian languages. Revolving around but not confined to its head-marking and polysynthetic character, Ainu manifests many typologically interesting phenomena, related in particular to the combinability of various voice markers and noun incor...
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Cognitive Archaeology is a relatively young though fast growing discipline. The intellectual heart of cognitive archaeology is archaeology, the discipline that investigates the only direct evidence of the actions and decisions of prehistoric people. Its theories and methods are an eclectic mix of psychological, neuroscientific, paleoneurological, philosophical, anthropological, ethnographic, comparative, aesthetic, and experimental theories, methods, and models, united only by their focus on cognition. The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Archaeology is a landmark publication, showcasing the theories, methods, and accomplishments of archaeologists who investigate the human mind, including its ev...
This volume, created by seventeen interdisciplinary authors, brings together pioneering practices that introduce arts into education in Japan. The field of research ranges from kindergarten, primary and secondary school to liberal arts and postgraduate courses at university. The chapters cover both formal and informal settings, such as museums and after school programs. The genres of art include visual art, performance, dance, vocal music, and drama. Arts-based or arts-inspired methods help students’ artistic inquiry through creative or performative practices, leading to new findings that might not otherwise be described. Artistic practice makes students reflect on their own bodies, emotio...
This well-illustrated work is the first attempt to bridge the gap between several specialized discourses concerning Japanese theatre. Central are problems of scholarly and practical reception of Japanese theatre forms in the West. The essays by a careful selection of internationally well-reputed scholars range widely through Japanese theatre, from the ancient to the postmodern, or, one might say, from kagura to angura. It deals with reception of Japanese theatre in the West, the treatment of the body in stage art and drama, Western influence, the impact of Japanese theatre practice and theory upon the actor’s training, and stage directing in the West. Readers will come across a wide variety of intriguing topics, such as lion dances, kabuki, nôh, folk theatre, taishu engeki, and several important modern playwrights, etc. This book truly promises to intensify future dialogue between the many disciplines concerned with Japanese theatre.
A house is a site, the bounds and focus of a community. It is also an artifact, a material extension of its occupants' lives. This book takes the Japanese house in both senses, as site and as artifact, and explores the spaces, commodities, and conceptions of community associated with it in the modern era. As Japan modernized, the principles that had traditionally related house and family began to break down. Even where the traditional class markers surrounding the house persisted, they became vessels for new meanings, as housing was resituated in a new nexus of relations. The house as artifact and the artifacts it housed were affected in turn. The construction and ornament of houses ceased t...
Volume 4 includes unique records of Orok (Uilta), a Tungusic language (dictionaries, texts, grammatical comments) noted down by Pilsudski directly from native informants at the beginning of the 20th century on Sakhalin. The original source material is identified with the help of - and confronted against - all the existing contemporary dictionaries with the assistance of leading specialists in the field (the Novosibirsk Avrorin group, also called the school of Manchu-Tungusologists). Abundant comparative data are quoted. All necessary introductory information and commentaries of ethnographic, historical, and linguistic nature are provided. Archival photos taken by Pilsudski are juxtaposed with related contemporary photos especially taken for this purpose. In addition, samples of original manuscript pages are reproduced. Bibliographical data and indices are provided in conformity with the previous volumes.
This volume is divided into four main sections, these focus on: commodities and their social meanings; anthropological investigation of business systems and practices; the economic importance of productive land in culture and society; and a showcase of new research on the economic anthropology of Latin America.