At sometime between 1716 and 1729, the Osaka publish-er Shibukawa Seiemon published a box-set anthology of twenty-three otogizōshi-works of short medieval fiction-which he titled “Read More →
Japanese medieval musical treatises often provide engaging legends concerning the origins of bugaku suites, the graceful dances at the core of the repertory of Japanese “elegant muRead More →
This talk will look into practices surrounding the collection and trade of insects in early twentieth-century Taiwan. It will explore the origins and entanglement of a mass-fabricaRead More →
In the medieval period a comprehensive discourse on“heresy” began to develop within Japanese Shingon Buddhistcircles. This was mainly centered on the Tachikawalineage (Tachikawa-ryRead More →
In 1593 the Jesuit Mission Press in Amakusa published the rst translation of Aesop’s Fables in East Asia, Esopo no fabulas, in romanized orthography. A separate, but seemingly relRead More →
Most students of Japanese culture or comparative mythology are familiar with tales of the progenitor deities Izanagi and Izanami, or of Susano-o, rebellious scion of the next divinRead More →
In 1827, the Osaka eastern magistracy rolled up a network of what the investigators identified as a Christian conspiracy. Caught in the net were a small group of female healers andRead More →
The graphic representation of the bodily viscera of war?blood, guts, and severed heads?is something we intuitively associate with medieval war tales. Yet, though it is fairly violeRead More →