On December 3, 2023, the international workshop “Living Textual Heritage in Modern and Contemporary Japan – Things, Practices, Worlds” was held. This workshop was planned, conceived, and realized by Edoardo Gerlini, a researcher at Ca’Foscari University of Venice, and Kimiko Kono, a researcher at Waseda University’s Faculty of Letters, Arts and Sciences following a workshop held in July 2020 and the results of their joint research compiled in a book of essays Are classics a heritage? : uses and re-creations of textual heritage in Japanese literature (edited by Edoardo Gerlini and Kimiko Kono, Bensei Shuppan, 2021). The workshop was an attempt to rethink Japanese literature and the classics from the perspective of textual heritage and to further highlight its significance and challenges.
The workshop began with opening remarks by Professor Satomi Yamamoto, Director of the Research Institute for Letters, Arts and Sciences, followed by an explanation of the main purpose of the workshop by Edoardo Gerlini. He explained that the workshop would consist of presentations from the perspectives of Things, Practices, and Worlds, and would focus not only on texts as Things but also on the various activities of people surrounding texts, such as creating, receiving, passing on, transmitting, or modifying them. He also expressed his hope that the event would provide a space to consider the effectiveness and possibilities of bringing the concept of textual heritage into textual studies from these three perspectives, while taking Japanese texts as the starting point for discussion and re-examining them from a global perspective.
This was followed by three presentations in each of the three sessions: Textual Heritage as Things, Textual Heritage as Practices, and Japanese Textual Heritage and the World. Presentations came from a diverse range of perspectives, including university specialists in classical Japanese literature and heritage studies, museum researchers, and curators, and were extremely stimulating and fruitful discussions on textual heritage in modern and contemporary Japan. In addition, the face-to-face participation of organizer Edoardo Gerlini and Edward Kamens, Professor Emeritus at Yale University, made it possible to have the discussion in one place, which proved to be a valuable benefit.
After the nine presenters finished, a one-hour general discussion followed. During the general discussion, participants deepened their thoughts on several important issues raised by the day’s presentations, including issues of translation and language, poetry texts, the relationship between art, architecture, and literature, and the relationship between cultural assets and heritage. In general, the workshop proved to be a meaningful time for thinking and discussing the new concept of textual heritage, which allowed participants to see the interconnectedness of the research being developed, and from this it is possible to discover new appealing points and significance in humanities research.
Event details
- Date and Time: December 3, 2023, 10:00-18:00 (JST)
- Venue: Conference Rm. 1, Bldg. 33, 3rd Fl., Toyama Campus
- Audience: Students, Faculty, General Public
- Admission: Free of charge
- Language: Japanese
- Organized by: Global Japanese Studies Model Unit, Waseda University Top Global University Project, Waseda University Research Institute for Letters, Arts and Sciences, The Ryusaku Tsunoda Center of Japanese Culture
Co-organized by: Waseda University Research Institute of Japanese Classical Books
