Rethinking Orikuchi Shinobu

PARTICIPANTS:
Eric Esteban (PhD Candidate, Yale University)
Tianran Hang (PhD Candidate, Columbia University)
Ekaterina Komova (Donald Keene Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Columbia University)
David Lurie (Associate Professor of Japanese History and Literature, Columbia University)
Chelsea Ward (Visiting Assistant Professor of Japanese, Colgate University)

Across the early and mid-20th century, Orikuchi Shinobu 折口信 夫 (1887-1953) published studies of traditional literature, religion, and culture that defined the field of minzokugaku 民俗学 (Japanese auto-ethnography) and shaped the development of academic studies of Japanese poetry, myth, fiction, drama, folklore, religion, and much more. At the same time, he composed some of the most innovative and enduring tanka poetry, free verse (shi), and prose fiction of the first half of the twentieth century. Orikuchi’s fiction and poetry drew extensively on his research in ancient texts and ethnographic fieldwork, and often advanced his academic theories, while the poetic and associative style of his scholarly writings makes them literary works as well as learned treatises. Along with the intrinsic value and appeal of his vast and varied corpus, he is a figure of great personal interest, whose openness about his homosexuality and drug use adds to the impression that he was ahead—or perhaps in some ways, outside—of his time. This workshop brings together emerging scholars of Japanese literature and religion to discuss Orikuchi’s literary and scholarly work and to survey the past, present, and future of his influence on a range of academic fields.

Register Here.