Team Research2020

Formation and Changes of Correspondence-Texts as Seen in the Principle of 'As If'-Transpositions: The Term Monjo, Its Styles, Signs, Representations, and Intentions

Unit

Foundational

Our team aims to examine the meaning of the term monjo (lit., “texts and notes,” often translated as documents). Besides the term itself, the content and gestalt of these texts transmit meaning, signs, and mentalities in mediaspecific ways as reflected in primary artefacts as well as in essays, literature, copies, encyclopaedias, records, paragons school booklets, drawings and pictures, and rituals. The study group will try to apply the “as if”—or “transposition”—principle to an interdisciplinary semiotic precis of these specifics in “texts and notes” written or read in Japanese, deriving from the China-Korea Sino-logographic communication sphere. The description by some scholars of monjo as “addressed correspondence,” suggests a fruitful perspective. My colleagues and I will compare texts functioning as or styled in the manner of correspondence and handed down to us in European and Asian cultures in order to find comparable communicative ground on which to examine etiquette and mentalities, media, and communication developed over the past five thousand years. The principles of information and mutual understanding are also part of our concern. From the standpoint of the theory of knowledge or phenomenology, the mutual relativity of Self and the Other is to be an object of observation. The literature of written correspondence thus associates problems of intention (reading and misreading) and behaviour. We will also transcend the boundaries between natural and social science on the one hand and cultural studies on the other. Cooperation among philology, philosophy, informatics, behavioural studies, and other fields of interest appears to be fundamental to our understanding of mentalities of communication. Finally, we hope to expand our awareness to differences and similarities in the behaviour of humankind and other animals, learning and culture, acts of mutual mind reading, the term of freedom, and other important issues that are mirrored in our source materials.

研究代表者	Markus RÜTTERMANN	国際日本文化研究センター教授
共同研究員	廣田　浩治	公益財団法人 静岡市文化振興財団学芸員
〃	梶谷　真司	東京大学大学院総合文化研究科学専攻比較文学比較文化コース教授
〃	金　泰虎	甲南大学国際言語文化センター教授
〃	小島　道裕	国立歴史民俗博物館教授
〃	森　洋久	東京大学総合研究博物館准教授
〃	小口　雅史	法政大学大学院人文科学研究科教授
〃	岡崎　敦	九州大学大学院人文科学研究院教授
〃	高橋　一樹	明治大学文学部史学地理学科教授
〃	Christian WITTERN	京都大学人文科学研究所東アジア人文情報学研究センター教授
〃	荒木　浩	国際日本文化研究センター教授
〃	榎本　渉	国際日本文化研究センター准教授
〃	磯前　順一	国際日本文化研究センター教授
海外共同研究員	Michael KINSKI	Goethe-Universitaet Frankfurt, Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaften, Japanologie教授
〃	Joerg B. QUENZER	Universität Hamburg, Asien-Afrika- Institut, Abteilung Sprache und Kultur Japans教授