Nichibunken News

This is the report from Prof. Manami Yasui (Nichibunken) who visited the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia University to give a lecture and participate in a workshop on April 18 and 19, 2024.

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On April 18 and 19, 2024, Manami Yasui (Nichibunken), visited the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia University in New York City to give a lecture and participate in a workshop. The Donald Keene Center regularly holds lectures and other events on Japanese culture, and as a part of these events, Yasui gave a lecture on “Visualizing Fetus in Early Modern Japan”.

Professor Haruo Shirane, Director of the Donald Keene Center and moderator of the lecture, introduced Yasui and stated the purpose of the lecture. Yasui then explained about the International Research Center for Japanese Studies and the Consortium for Global Japanese Studies, and went on to analyze how images of the fetus changed over time, focusing on nishiki-e in the 1880’, which depicted the growth of the fetus, in connection with the current exhibition “Maternal Health and Images of the Body in Japanese Ukiyo-e”, at the University of California, San Francisco. online museum

Following the lecture, participants, including graduate students, researchers, and the general public, asked a series of insightful questions that led to a lively discussion. For example, they asked whether the sex of the fetus was ever depicted in the nishiki-e, a sub-genre of ukiyo-e, and who was the target of the illustrations. Yasui responded by showing materials, demonstrating that the sex of the fetus was not depicted, but that there were texts relevant to the topic in nishiki-e.

The following day, April 19, Prof. Haruo Shirane and Lu Kou, Assistant Professor, organized a workshop entitled “Questioning the ‘Supernatural’ in Chinese and Japanese Literature/Culture,” sponsored by the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and the Donald Keene Center, at Columbia University's Hamilton Hall. This was a continuation of the “Theorizing and Historicizing Yōkai in Global Context” symposium held at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in December 2023 in Japanese, but this time in English. In addition to Prof. Shirane and Associate Prof. Kou, speakers included Professor Michael Foster of UC Davis, who also spoke in December, Professor Anne Commons of Translation Studies from the University of Alberta, Canada, and Yasui of Nichibunken. A fruitful discussion continued with faculty members and graduate students from Columbia University afterwards.Yasui was scheduled to present on the differences in images of "ubume", a female Yōkai, between Japan and China, but after consultation with Professor Shirane, she introduced the Nichibunken Yōkai database (Folktales of Strange Phenomena and Yōkai (Ghosts, Monsters, Spirits), Paintings of Strange Phenomena and Yōkai (Ghosts, Monsters, Spirits) ) for discussing Yōkai images and legends in a global context instead. The workshop will be presented in a book to be published in Japanese in March 2025.

(by Manami Yasui, Nichibunken)

• Prof. Yasui presenting her talk
• Prof. Yasui presenting her talk
• Prof. Shirane and Prof. Yasui in the discussion
• Presentation of Yōkai kai database