Forum Kunstgeschichte Ostasiens: Öffentliche KeynoteTelling the Stories of Buddhist Makers: Methodologies to Recover the Cultural History of Medieval Japan
- Termin in der Vergangenheit
- Friday, 10. May 2024, 14:30 Uhr
- Centre for Asian and Transcultural Studies, CATS Auditorium HS05, Voßstraße 2, 69115 Heidelberg
- Prof. Dr. Halle O'Neal, University of Edinburgh (UK), Edinburgh College of Art
With the cataclysm of death, what happens to those remaining fragments of a life, which appear disposable to others but become the mourner’s heart-breaking distillations of both loss and trace? While a fading practice today, handwritten letters in medieval Japan were the primary form of communication between long-separated lovers, parents unlikely to reunite with their children, and distant friends, artists, and poets. In this rich epistolary culture, letters – reused, recycled, and reframed – figured prominently in Buddhist memorial rituals. With the death of a loved one, family members gathered the dead’s letters and transcribed sacred scripture on their surface, transforming the original missive into a letter sutra (shōsokukyō). But a study of this topic faces numerous obstacles, from silent sources to a lack of surviving examples. This keynote, therefore, workshops the methodological challenges of understanding such palimpsests through the angles of haptics, materiality, and the history of emotions.
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Centre for Asian and Transcultural Studies
CATS Auditorium HS05
Voßstraße 2
69115 HeidelbergLivestream
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Meeting ID: 693 3849 5260
Passcode: ForumOAKG