{"id":4200,"date":"2018-11-05T19:28:04","date_gmt":"2018-11-05T10:28:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/?p=4200"},"modified":"2018-11-06T14:49:52","modified_gmt":"2018-11-06T05:49:52","slug":"event-report-the-phantasmal-sophisticate-mediation-and-distinction-in-18th-century-edo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/news-en\/2018\/11\/05\/4200\/","title":{"rendered":"Event report “The Phantasmal Sophisticate: Mediation and Distinction in 18th-Century Edo”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lecture by Assistant Professor Thomas Gaubatz<\/h3>\n

The Phantasmal Sophisticate: Mediation and Distinction in 18th<\/sup>-Century Edo<\/h3>\n

This lecture was sponsored by Waseda University’s Global Japanese Studies Model Unit of the Top Global University Project and co-sponsored by the Waseda University Research Institute for Letters, Arts and Sciences and the Ryusaku Tsunoda Center of Japanese Culture. Despite taking place during the university’s summer break, the lecture drew numerous attendees, including an international group of researchers from Waseda University and other institutions, as well as other faculty members and students.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nFor this lecture event, titled \u201cThe Phantasmal Sophisticate: Mediation and Distinction in 18th-Century Edo,\u201d Thomas Gaubatz, an assistant professor at Northwestern University’s Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, was invited to speak.\"\"<\/p>\n

The event started with opening remarks by Waseda University Professor Hirokazu Toeda. Professor Toeda explained the objective of the lecture and introduced the audience to the lecturer, Thomas Gaubatz, as well as Waseda University\u2019s Professor Takashi Nakajima, who took on the role of commentator. Gaubatz specializes in early modern Japanese literature and media and has focused his research on the depiction of characters through urban spaces and identities portrayed in literature.<\/p>\n

Gaubatz’s lecture reconsidered the meaning and evolution of the character archetype known as the ts\u016b or ts\u016bjin in the gesaku (a category of humorous written works for a mass readership) in Edo (modern-day Tokyo) during the Anei and Tenmei periods (1772\u20131789). The lecture focused on the genre of gesaku called sharebon, which so often depicted ts\u016bjin and the conditions that purportedly made a character belong to this archetype to the extent that they were also known as \u201cts\u016b books.\u201d By viewing sharebon as a distinct medium, Gaubatz provided a new understanding of the ts\u016b, who has heretofore been discussed in terms of the particular aesthetic notions or of ideals concerning lifestyles that existed during the era. Thus, Gaubatz explained, the lack of agreement as to what attributes made a character a ts\u016b\/ts\u016bjin produced, precisely because of the vagueness of the meaning of those terms, a discourse space in which authors of different social status disputed their cultural authority with one another. In conclusion, Gaubatz argued that sharebon was a medium that made possible the phantasmal character of the ts\u016b.<\/p>\n

\"\"After the lecture proper, the commentator, Professor Takashi Nakajima, began by summarizing the significance of Gaubatz’s argument, which criticized the existing conceptualization of sharebon as attempts to convey the aesthetic notion of the ts\u016b to readers. Professor Nakajima then posed two questions: How was the figure of the ts\u016b involved in influencing the Kansei Reforms, and what was sought by the mass readership of sharebon?<\/p>\n

After the discussion between the designated commentator and Gaubatz, the floor was opened to questions and answers involving the audience. There was a lively discussion, with a variety of questions and comments. One attendee responded to Gaubatz’s assertion that authors of different social status used sharebon to present readers with cultural information, eventually creating a \u201cvenue to dispute cultural authority\u201d: Perhaps we should draw our attention to the language used in those disputes, as well as to the fashion styles, other markers of social status, and the cultures that followed from those statuses, as cyphers for understanding such differences.<\/p>\n

At the end of the event, Professor Kimiko Kono of Waseda University used her closing remarks to touch upon how Gaubatz’s argument might be applied to transcend eras and areas of specialization, affirming the significance of providing, through \u201cinternational Japanese studies,\u201d a new perspective on Japanese studies as it currently exists. The lecture event then concluded as a rousing success.<\/p>\n

<Event Contents>
\nLecture title: The Phantasmal Sophisticate: Mediation and Distinction in 18th-Century Edo
\nDate and time: Friday, September 14, 2018 (Fri.) 4:30 pm to 6:00 pm
\nVenue: Meeting Room 10, 16th floor of Building 33, Toyama Campus, Waseda University
\nSponsored by: Waseda University’s Global Japanese Studies Model Unit, Top Global University Project
\nCo-sponsored by: Waseda University Research Institute for Letters, Arts and Sciences and the Ryusaku Tsunoda Center of Japanese Culture<\/p>\n

Opening remarks:\u3000 Hirokazu Toeda (Professor, Waseda University)
\nLecture:\u3000\u3000\u3000\u3000\u3000\u00a0 \u00a0Thomas Gaubatz (Assistant Professor, Northwestern University)
\nCommentator:\u3000\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Takashi Nakajima (Professor, Waseda University)
\nClosing remarks:\u3000\u00a0 \u00a0Kimiko Kono (Professor, Waseda University)
\nModerators:\u3000\u3000\u3000\u00a0 \u00a0Pau Pitarch-Fernandez (Associate Professor, Waseda University)\u00a0 Kim Young-Long (Guest Lecturer, Waseda University Research Council)
\nCoordinator:\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Hiroki Matsumoto (Guest Associate Professor, Waseda University Research Council)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lecture by Assistant Professor Thomas Gaubatz The Phantasmal Sophisticate: Mediation and Distinction in 18th-C […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4194,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[97,111],"class_list":["post-4200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en","tag-en-gj","tag-report-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}