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Comparative aesthetics is the branch of philosophy which compares the aesthetic concepts and practices of different cultures. The way in which cultures conceive of the aesthetic dimension of life in general and art in particular is revelatory of profound attitudes and beliefs which themselves make up an important part of the culture in question. This anthology of essays by internationally recognised scholars in this field brings into one volume some of the most important research in comparative aesthetics, from classic early essays to previously unpublished contemporary pieces. Ranging across cultures and time periods as diverse as ancient Greece, India and China and the modern West and Japan, the essays reveal both similarities and deep differences between the aesthetic traditions concerned. In the course of these expositions and comparisons there emerges the general conclusion that no culture can be fully grasped if its aesthetic ideas are not understood.
Essays on Japan is a compilation of Professor Michael F. Marra’s essays written in the past ten years on the topics of Japanese literature, Japanese aesthetics, and the space between the two subjects. Marra is one of the leading scholars in the field of Japanese aesthetics and hermeneutics and has published extensively on medieval and early modern Japanese literature, thought, and the arts. This work will present the reader critical insight into the fields of Japanese aesthetics, literary hermeneutics, and literature, with essays on such texts and figures as Kuki Shūzō, The Tale of Genji, Motoori Norinaga, and Heidegger.
What essentially is a garden? Is it a small plot of land that we put aside to cultivate our favorite vegetables or to grow flowers for our personal enjoyment? Or is it a symbol, a mirror, a reflection of our human passions? The topic of the present volume is the mysterious ways in which Imaginatio Creatix plays within the human ingrowness in natural life, transposing dreams, nostalgias, and enchantments.
In Exile and Otherness: The Ethics of Shinran and Maimonides, Ilana Maymind argues that Shinran (1173–1263), the founder of True Pure Land Buddhism (Jodo Shinshu), and Maimonides (1138–1204), a Jewish philosopher, Torah scholar, and physician, were both deeply affected by their conditions of exile as shown in the construction of their ethics. By juxtaposing the exilic experiences of two contemporaries who are geographically and culturally separated and yet share some of the same concerns, this book expands the boundaries of Shin Buddhist studies and Jewish studies. It demonstrates that the integration into a new environment for Shinran and the creative mixture of cultures for Maimonides allowed them to view certain issues from the position of empathic outsiders. Maymind demonstrates that the biographical experiences of these two thinkers who exhibit sensitivity to the neglected and suffering others, resonate with conditions of exile and diasporic living in pluralistic societies that define the lives of many individuals, communities, and societies in the twenty-first century.
In the West, classical art - inextricably linked to concerns of a ruling or dominant class - commonly refers to art with traditional themes and styles that resurrect a past golden era. Although art of the early Edo period (1600-1868) encompasses a spectrum of themes and styles, references to the past are so common that many Japanese art historians have variously described this period as a classical revival, era of classicism, or a renaissance. How did seventeenth-century artists and patrons imagine the past? Why did they so often select styles and themes from the court culture of the Heian period (794-1185)? Were references to the past something new, or were artists and patrons in previous periods equally interested in manners that came to be seen as classical? How did classical manners relate to other styles and themes found in Edo art? In considering such questions, the contributors to this volume hold that classicism has been an amorphous, changing concept in Japan - just as in the West. Troublesome in its ambiguity and implications, it cannot be separated from the political and ideological interests of those who have employed it over the years. The modern writers who firs
This study addresses the relationship between Japanese aesthetics, a field steeped in philosophy and traditional knowledge, and anime, a prominent part of contemporary popular culture. There are three premises: (1) the abstract concepts promoted by Japanese aesthetics find concrete expression at the most disparate levels of everyday life; (2) the abstract and the concrete coalesce in the visual domain, attesting to the visual nature of Japanese culture at large; and (3) anime can help us appreciate many aspects of Japan's aesthetic legacy, in terms of both its theoretical propositions and its visual, even tangible, aspects.
Offering the first book-length study in English on Tsubouchi and Shakespeare, Gallimore offers an overview of the theory and practice of Tsubouchi’s Shakespeare translation and argues for Tsubouchi’s place as "the Japanese Shakespeare." Shakespeare translation is one of the achievements of modern Japanese culture, and no one is more associated with that achievement than the writer and scholar Tsubouchi Shōyō (1859–1935). This book looks at how Tsubouchi received Shakespeare in the context of his native literature and his strategies for bridging the gaps between Shakespeare’s rhetoric and his developing language. Offering a significant contribution to the field of global Shakespeare...
Artistic Detachment in Japan and the West takes up the notion of artistic detachment, or psychic distance, as an intercultural motif for East-West comparative aesthetics. The work begins with an overview of aesthetic theory in the West from the eighteenth-century empiricists to contemporary aesthetics and concludes with a survey of various critiques of psychic distance. Throughout, the author takes a highly innovative approach by juxtaposing Western aesthetic theory against Eastern (primarily Japanese) aesthetic theory. Weaving between cultures and time periods, the author focuses on a remarkably wide range of theories: in the West, the Kantian notion of disinterested contemplation, Heidegge...
This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note that the online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title was published online.
Japanese Fashion examines the entire sweep of Japanese clothing history, from the sophisticated fashion systems of late-Edo period kimonos to the present day, providing possible theories of how Japan made this fashion journey and linking current theories of fashion to the Japanese example. The book is unique in that it provides the first full history of the last 200 years of Japanese clothing. It is also the first book to include Asian fashion as part of global fashion as well as fashion theory. It adds a hitherto absent continuity to the understanding of historical and current fashion in Japan, and is pioneering in offering possible theories to account for that entire history. By providing an analysis of how that entire history changes our understanding of the way fashion works, this book will be an essential text for all students of fashion and design.