Course Syllabus

Buddhism and Japanese Artistic Traditions (HUMA E-160)

Spring 2017

Thursdays 5:30-7:30 PM

Instructor: Ryuichi Abé   (EALC) Rm. 130B 2 Divinity Ave.

rabe@fas.harvard.edu

Teaching Fellow: Teaching Fellows: Eric Swanson (PhD candidate, GSAS, Harvard University)

This course is designed to enable students to analyze a wide range of Japanese cultural creations – including the traditional Noh theatre, classical and modern Japanese paintings, and contemporary anime – by illustrating the influence of Buddhism both on their forms and at their depths. The first part of the course is a study of major Buddhist philosophy and its impact on Japanese literature. The second part observes Buddhist ritual practices and their significance for Japanese performing arts. The last part traces the development of Japanese Buddhist art, and considers the influence of Buddhism on diverse contemporary popular Japanese art media.

Requirements


- active preparation for and participation in weekly class and Issues for Considerations (10%)

- mid-term exam (20%)


- term paper (8-12 pages) (30%) - final examination (40%)

Assignments

All assigned reading materials will be provided as electronic files on our website or through Harvard Library digital links.

Course Outline

Introduction: Buddhism – its philosophy, practice, and assumptions

• Week 1 (1/26) Karma, Zen, Nirvana, and Relativity

Importance of studying spirituality, art, and culture together in our contemporary social setting/Buddhism, Japanese art, and culture / Buddhist terms in American language vocabulary/ Buddhism and American and Japanese pop culture/ causation and the law of karma/ What is “Mahayana”?/how emptiness, selflessness, and compassion relate with each other

Assignment: Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist Experience (Donald Michell, Oxford University Press), chapters 1-2, Selections from Chapter 3 (pp.65-74).

• Week 2 (2/2) Central Ideas of East Asian Buddhism

Two Grounding Theories of Mahayana Buddhism/ the core theories of Emptiness, Consciousness, and Buddhahood/ their expressions in art, architecture, and literature.

Assignment: Mitchell, Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist Experience, Chapters 4-5, Selections from Chapter 7 (pp. 197-213); Nagarjuna, Garfield, trans., Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way pp. 28-30; 189-195.

Part I: Buddhist Scriptural Language and the Production of Japanese Literary Texts

• Week 3 (2/9) Reading Buddhist scripture as literary texts I: Poetics of the Dharma

Buddhist cosmology and its relationship to philosophy/ understanding the Buddhist scriptural texts, texture, and textuality/ metaphor, parables and the philosophy of emptiness

Assignment: The Lotus Sutra (Burton Watson, trans., Columbia University Press), chapters 1-11; “ Word” in Critical Terms for the Study of Buddhism (Donald Lopez ed., University of Chicago Press), pp. 291-310.

Issues for Consideration: Review of the nondualist theory and its relationship to compassion and social action. The reason for the popularity of this scriptural text in the East Asian and Japanese historical context.

• Week 4 (2/16) Reading Buddhist scripture as literary texts II: Rhetoric of Wisdom and Compassion

How to construct orthodoxy without creating heterodoxy/ textual language and the Buddha’s life, Buddha’s death/ sentient beings and their originally enlightened mind/scripture as the Buddha’s relic?

Assignments: The Lotus Sutra, chapters 12, 15, 16. 20, (Suggested: Ch. 24, 25); Abé, “Revisiting the Dragon Princess” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 42/1 pp.27-45; 56-64.

Issues for Consideration: Review of the relationship between the rhetorical and poetic strategies in the text and its philosophical content. Influence of this text on Japanese cultural history.

• Weeks 5 (2/23) Buddhist cosmology and medieval Japanese drama

Buddhism and literary arts in East Asia/ Buddhism, native Japanese gods, and medieval poetics.

Assignments: Japanese No Drama (Royall Tyler, trans., Penguin Classic), “Introduction,” “Ama, ” “Atsumori,” “Chikubu-shima,” “Eguchi” “Kasuga Dragon God” “Matsukaze,” and “Semimaru.”; Abé, “Revisiting the Dragon Princess” pp.45-56; Shiverly and McCullough eds., Cambridge History of Japan vol.1 (e-book accessible through HOLLIS), pp. 229-246, 254-260, 359-360, 373-379, 381-389, 397-414; Shiverly and McCullough eds., Cambridge History of Japan vol.2 (e-book accessible through HOLLIS), pp. 449-516; 520-547, 564-568, 571-575, 576, 679-709.

Issues for Consideration: Distinguishing the Buddhist and non-Buddhist motifs in the drama, their mutual influence, interfusion, and conflict. Construction and deconstruction of gender roles and their social implications.

• Week 6 (3/2) Buddhism, modernity and pop fiction

Buddhism, secularism and pop culture; Buddhism after patriarchy and outside medieval cosmology; a postmodern pop fiction – what Buddhist and/or Japanese it is about, and does that matter?

Assignment: Asleep by Banana Yoshimoto (Michael Emmerich, trans., Grove Press), pp. 105-177.

Issues for Consideration: Comparison between the sleep in Yoshimoto’s fiction (coma, daydreaming, meditation, hysteria) with the shamanistic trans in the Noh dramas; Yoshimoto’s rhetoric compared with traditional Japanese poetics; Buddhism and gender in the contemporary Japanese texts.

• Week 7 (3/9) Indra’s Jewel Net and Emptiness as Network /The Kegon (Huayan) School as the Theoretical Foundation of Zen and Esoteric Buddhism.

Assignments: Mitchell, Buddhism, pp.213-219, 275-288; B.B. Mandelbrot, “Fractal Geometry: What is it, and what does it do?” (Proceeding of the Royal Society of London, Series A, 1989.05.08. pp.3-16
(available through JSTOR)

Part II: Meditative Body, Ritualized Mind, and Performing Arts

• Week 8 (3/23) Zen, and the Art of Living?

Zen, Buddhism, and Taoism/ Zen’s ritualism and anti-ritualism/ koan and zen language/ zazen as a performance/what is Zen enlightenment and what does it do for us ?/ how Zen became Japanese.

Assignment: How to Raise an Ox, Collected Writings of Dogen (Francis Cook, trans., Wisdom Publications) pp.1-56 (tranlsators’ introductory essays), “The Sound of the Valley Streams” pp. 69-80; “Arousing the Supreme Thought” pp. 81-89, “Spring and Fall” pp. 111-116, “Deep Faith in Cause and Effect” pp. 117-124, “Everyday Life” pp. 153-157. ; Mitchell, Buddhism, pp. 219-266, 288-316.

Issues for Consideration: Influence of Japanese Zen (texts) on American popular culture. What aspect of it is Buddhist or Japanese, or does it help to make such a distinction?

3/30 Mid-term Exam

• Week 9 (4/6) Training the body, taming the mind for art

Japanese esthetics and Buddhism/ritual performance and its simulation of cosmos, Buddhas, and demons /value of beauty for Japanese Buddhism/ modality of training/ transmission and preservation of art/ the body perishable, the body eternal

Assignment: On the Art of Noh Drama (Reimer and Yamazaki, trans, Princeton University Press), pp. xvii-xlv, 3-73, 111-147.

Issues for Consideration: Review of common elements in the mechanics (and premises) of training in Buddhism and Japanese performing arts. Their applications for modern sports psychology and performing arts. The microcosm-macrocosm correspondence between body and cosmos.

Part III: Form as Emptiness – Visuality, Buddhism, and Art

• Week 10 (4/13) Instant Enlightenment and Esoteric Buddhist Mandala

Shingon Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism/ theory of Instant Buddhahood/esoteric Buddhist rereading of Buddhist cosmology and Buddhahood/ “virtual reality” meditative technique/ Esoteric Buddhism, language, and art /how Mandala works for meditative rituals/ Mandala as a fractal art/ translating Buddhist theories to visual images

Assignments: Mitchell, Buddhism, pp.213-219, 280-281; Kûkai: Major Works, (Yoshito Hakeda, trans., Columbia University Press), pp.1-100, 151-234.
Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis, Japanese Mandalas, (University of Hawaii Press), introduction, chapters 1-6.

Issues for Consideration: Review of the images that translate Buddhist concepts into visual signs and symbols and the place in Japanese art history.

• Week 11 (4/20) Modern Japanese Painting and Culture of Anime

Buddhism and modernization of Japanese art/ Buddhist ideas and contemporary Japanese popular art/ Buddhism and the theory of “Superflat”

Assignments: Murakami Takashi, Superflat. Chistine Guth, “Japan 1868- 1945: Art Architecture, and National Identity.” Art Journal, 55/3 pp.16-20. (available through JSOR); Hugo Munsterberg, “Tradition and Innovation in Modern Japanese Painting.” Art Journal 27/2 pp. 151-155 (JSOR). John Clark, “Modernity in Japanese Painting.” Art History 9/2 pp.213-231 (Academic Search Premier downloadable file).

Issues for Consideration: Discussion on the relation between modern Japanese pop culture and Buddhism

• Week 12 (4/27) Buddhism, Science and Pop Culture

Buddhism-inspired Japanese robotics/ science and Buddhism -- conflicts and mutual grounds/science and modern Japanese visual arts, architecture, and popular media, concluding observations

Assignments: Masahiro Mori, The Buddha and the Robots (Tokyo: Kosei Publishig) Chapters 1-4, 8, 10, 11; W.A. Borody, “The Japanese Roboticist Masahiro Mori’s Buddhist Inspired Concept of Uncanny Valley” Journal of Evolution and Technology 23/1 (December 2013) pp. 31-44, abstract available at (http://jetpress.org/v23/borody.htm Links to an external site.) .

• Week 13 (5/4) Summary: Buddhism, Robotics, and Virtual Reality

Shin, Hyewon, “Voice and Vision in Oshii Mamoru’s Ghost in the Shell: Beyond Cartesian Optics.” Animation-An Interdisciplinary Journal 6/1 pp.7-23. (Available through JSTOR); Frenchy Lunning, “Giant Robots and Superheros: Manifestation of Divine Power, East and West” Mechademia vol.3 Limits of the Human pp. 274-282 available through JSTOR; Oshii Mamoru, Ghost in the Shell 1 (DVD Video).

Final Examination: TBA

This course is designed to enable students to analyze a wide range of Japanese cultural creations – including the traditional Noh theatre, classical and modern Japanese paintings, and contemporary anime – by illustrating the influence of Buddhism both on their forms and at their depths. The first part of the course is a study of major Buddhist philosophy and its impact on Japanese literature. The second part observes Buddhist ritual practices and their significance for Japanese performing arts. The last part traces the development of Japanese Buddhist art, and considers the influence of Buddhism on diverse contemporary popular Japanese art media.