Tuesday, Dec.6, 4:30 to 6:30pm, CWAC156
An Interpretation of Yatsuhashi (‘the Eight-plank Bridge’): Space and Memory in Edo Political History
Timon Screech,
Professor of the History of Art at SOAS, University of London
The Japanese landscape is filled with ‘famous places’, also known as ‘poetic pillows’, meaning sites that figures from the past wrote compellingly about in words that were remembered ever after. Naturally, most sites were near Kyoto, but areas to the East are not entirely devoid of them. Some sites were specific locations, some generic, and others had a specificity that was lost over time.
This talk will be centered on Yatsuhashi, which is in Mikawa, though no one knew quite where. It opens the ‘Decent to the East’ section of the Tales of Ise, which continues with a journey past Shizuoka, over Hakone and to Musashi, Since Musashi was where the Tokugawa family created their shogunate 600 years later, Yatsuhashi acquired special meaning in Edo times.
We will consider the wider meanings of this site, and also of others that the new shogunate sought to associate itself with.
Tuesday, Dec.6, 4:30 to 6:30pm, CWAC156
Persons with concerns regarding accessibility please contact Zhiyan Yang (zhiyan@uchicago.edu)
