Rewriting Medieval Japanese Women

Rewriting Medieval Japanese Women explores the world of thirteenth-century Japan through the life of a prolific noblewoman known as Nun Abutsu (1225–1283). Abutsu crossed gender and genre barriers by writing the first career guide for Japanese noblewomen, the first female-authored poetry treatise, and the first poetic travelogue by a woman—all despite the increasingly limited social mobility for women during the Kamakura era (1185–1336). Capitalizing on her literary talent and political prowess, Abutsu rose from middling origins and single-motherhood to a prestigious marriage and membership in an esteemed literary lineage. Abutsu’s life is well documented in her own letters, diaries, and commentaries, as well as in critiques written by rivals, records of poetry events, and legal documents. Drawing on these and other literary and historiographical sources, including The Tale of Genji, author Christina Laffin demonstrates how medieval women responded to institutional changes that transformed their lives as court attendants, wives, and nuns. Despite increased professionalization of the arts, competition over sources of patronage, and rivaling claims to literary expertise, Abutsu proved her poetic capabilities through her work and often used patriarchal ideals of femininity to lay claim to political and literary authority. Rewriting Medieval Japanese Women effectively challenges notions that literary salons in Japan were a phenomenon limited to the Heian period (794–1185) and that literary writing and scholarship were the domain of men during the Kamakura era. Its analysis of literary works within the context of women’s history makes clear the important role that medieval women and their cultural contributions continued to play in Japanese history.

Women have long been active supporters and promoters of Buddhist rituals and functions, but their importance in the operations of Buddhist schools has often been minimized. Chin’ichibō (?–1344), a nun who taught male and female disciples and lived in her own temple, is therefore considered an anomaly. In Tracing the Itinerant Path, Caitilin Griffiths’ meticulous research and translations of primary sources indicate that Chin’ichibō is in fact an example of her time—a learned female who was active in the teaching and spread of Buddhism—and not an exception. Chin’ichibō and her disciples were jishū, members of a Pure Land Buddhist movement of which the famous charismatic holy man Ippen (1239–1289) was a founder. Jishū, distinguished by their practice of continuous nembutsu chanting, gained the support of a wide and diverse populace throughout Japan from the late thirteenth century. Male and female disciples rarely cloistered themselves behind monastic walls, preferring to conduct ceremonies and religious duties among the members of their communities. They offered memorial and other services to local lay believers and joined itinerant missions, traveling across provinces to reach as many people as possible. Female members were entrusted to run local practice halls that included male participants. Griffiths’ study introduces female jishū who were keenly involved—not as wives, daughters, or mothers, but as partners and leaders in the movement. Filling the lacunae that exists in our understanding of women’s participation in Japanese religious history, Griffiths highlights the significant roles female jishū held and offers a more nuanced understanding of Japanese Buddhist history. Students of Buddhism, scholars of Japanese history, and those interested in women’s studies will find this volume a significant and compelling contribution.

"This Handbook provides a state-of-the-art exploration of several key dynamics in current studies of the Buddhist tradition with a focus on practice. Embodiment, materiality, emotion, and gender shape the way most Buddhists engage with their traditions, in contrast to popular representations of Buddhism as spiritual, disembodied, and largely devoid of ritual. This volume highlights how practice often represents a fluid, dynamic, and strategic means of defining identity and negotiating the challenges of everyday life. Essays explore the transformational aims of practices that require practitioners to move, gesture, and emote in prescribed ways, including the ways that scholars' own embodied practices are integral to their research methodology. The chapters are written by acknowledged experts in their respective subject areas and taken together offer an overview of current thinking in the field. The volume is of particular value to scholars who seek an orientation to current perspectives on important conceptual, theoretical, and methodological concerns that are shaping the field in areas outside their primary expertise. The inclusion of substantial, up-to-date bibliographies also makes the volume an important guide to current scholarship"--

Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji is variously read as a work of feminist protest, the world's first psychological novel and even as a post-modern masterpiece. Commonly seen as Japan's greatest literary work, its literary, cultural, and historical significance has been thoroughly acknowledged. As a work focused on the complexities of Japanese court life in the Heian period, however, the The Tale of Genji has never before been the subject of philosophical investigation. The essays in this volume address this oversight, arguing that the work contains much that lends itself to philosophical analysis. The authors of this volume demonstrate that The Tale of Genji confronts universal themes such as the nature and exercise of political power, freedom, individual autonomy and agency, renunciation, gender, and self-expression; it raises deep concerns about aesthetics and the role of art, causality, the relation of man to nature, memory, and death itself. Although Murasaki Shikibu may not express these themes in the text as explicitly philosophical problems, the complex psychological tensions she describes and her observations about human conduct reveal an underlying framework of philosophical assumptions about the world of the novel that have implications for how we understand these concerns beyond the world of Genji. Each essay in this collection reveals a part of this framework, situating individual themes within larger philosophical and historical contexts. In doing so, the essays both challenge prevailing views of the novel and each other, offering a range of philosophical interpretations of the text and emphasizing the The Tale of Genji's place as a masterful work of literature with broad philosophical significance.

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Uncertain Powers is an original and much-needed analysis of female leadership in medieval Japan. In challenging current scholarship by exploring the important political and economic roles of twelfth- and thirteenth-century Japanese royal women, Sachiko Kawai questions the traditional view of the era as one dominated by male retired monarchs and a warrior government. Instead the author populates it with royal wives and daughters who held the title of premier royal lady (nyoin) and owned extensive estates across the Japanese archipelago. Nyoin, whose power varied according to marital status, networks, and age, used their wealth and human networks to build temples and organize their entourages as salons to assert religious, cultural, and political influence. Confronted with social factors and gender disparities, they were motivated to develop coping strategies, the workings of which Kawai masterfully teases out from the abundant primary sources. Uncertain Powers presents a nuanced and groundbreaking study of the relationship between a nyoin’s authority (her acknowledged rights) and her actual power (the ability to enforce those rights), demonstrating how, as members of political factions, as landlords, and as religious and cultural patrons, nyoin struggled to transform authority into power by means of cooperation, persuasion, compromise, and coercion.

Scholarship on premodern Japan has grown spectacularly over the past four decades, in terms of both sophistication and volume. A new approach has developed, marked by a higher reliance on primary documents, a shift away from the history of elites to broader explorations of social structures, and a re-examination of many key assumptions. As a result, the picture of the early Japanese past now taught by specialists differs radically from the one that was current in the mid-twentieth century. This handbook offers a comprehensive historiographical review of Japanese history up until the 1500s. Featuring chapters by leading historians and covering the early Jōmon, Yayoi, Kofun, Nara, and Heian eras, as well as the later medieval periods, each section provides a foundational grasp of the major themes in premodern Japan. The sections will include: Geography and the environment Political events and institutions Society and culture Economy and technology The Routledge Handbook of Premodern Japanese History is an essential reference work for students and scholars of Japanese, Asian, and World History.

This book is a guide to identifying female creators and artistic movements from all parts of Asia, offering a broad spectrum of media and presentation representing a wide variety of milieus, regions, peoples and genres. Arranged chronologically by artist birth date, entries date as far back as Leizu's Chinese sericulture in 2700 BCE and continue all the way to the March 2021 mural exhibition by Malaysian painter Caryn Koh. Entries feature biographical information, cultural context and a survey of notable works. Covering creators known for prophecy, dance, epic and oratory, the compendium includes obscure artists and more familiar names, like biblical war poet Deborah, Judaean dancer Salome, Byzantine Empress Theodora and Myanmar freedom fighter Aung San Suu Kyi. In an effort to relieve unfamiliarity with parts of the world poorly represented in art history, this book focuses on Asian women often passed over in global art surveys.