Open seminar: Creative Religiosity, or the Labor of the Visual: Economy and Performance in Edo Period Everyday Religiosity

The International MA Program (IMAP) in Japanese Humanities, Kyushu University, is pleased to announce the following lecture by Prof. Fabio Rambelli on February 8, 2016 from 4:30 PM

Creative Religiosity, or the Labor of the Visual:

Economy and Performance in Edo Period Everyday Religiosity

Abstract

This papers aims to explore two types of labor that undergirded Tokugawa Japan religiosity, namely production of sacred objects and street performances (there is a third type of labor, i.e., as semiotic labor), by focusing on two sets of social groups and their activities: (1) professions and professional categories dedicated exclusively to the production of Buddhist objects (and, to a lesser extent, Shinto objects as well); and (2) itinerant religious specialists and performing artists, who were more of less directly affiliated with religious institutions or who dealt with more or less explicit religious themes (including ancestors, the dead, the afterlife, divination, good fortune, etc.—in other words, the whole spectrum of impalpable agencies located in the “invisible world”, a term that becomes more and more important in the Edo period). Both groups of people were involved in forms of labor aimed at evoking, representing, and controlling the Invisible World of buddhas, kami, ancestors, and spirits that was taking on new aspects and characterizations.

Place

Kyushu University, Hakozaki Campus

Humanities Building, 4^th-floor conference room (文学部会議室)

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?vps=1&ie=UTF8&hl=en&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=201906907073732804438.0004eee28c199b30b2163

For further information please contact Ellen Van Goethem at vgoethem@lit.kyushu-u.ac.jp

This lecture is supported by Kyushu University’s Progress 100 (World Premier International Researcher Invitation Program) funds. Prof. Rambelli will be in residence at Kyushu University until late March.