CRCAO / Research / Research programmes
Essays “Following the Brush” (zuihitsu) : Collections of Thoughts and Observations concerning the Past and Present of Pre-modern Japan
Japan Team
Objectives
This new programme aims to study certain characteristics of the essays, usually grouped in the modern category known as » brushstroke notes » (zuihitsu), which flourished during the Edo period. Since the 17th century, booksellers’ catalogues have listed these books in a broader category, koji (precedents) and zakki (various notes), which covers a field ranging from « literary » essays, collections of thoughts captured in the moment, to real collections of stories and classified reflections, or even illustrated encyclopaedias.
There is also a multiplicity of author profiles, be they Confucian merchants or warriors, Buddhist monks, doctors, or even lords; but also a multiplicity of languages, with essays in Chinese, and others in written Japanese. The Chinese characters and two syllabaries, the katakana of the aspiring literate public and the hiragana of the « people », are still as many different media used by the authors of these collections.
Finally, these works are at the crossroads of many internal and external influences: they inherit both the style and organisation of their Chinese equivalents (biji and/or leishu), in particular Xie Zhaozhe’s Wuzazu (1616), and also that of local classics, notably Urabe Kenkô’s Tsurezuregusa (14th century).
Despite this great diversity of forms and styles, it seems nevertheless possible to identify certain recurring themes. These include reflections on the near and distant past, court culture (ga), popular culture (zoku), language, customs, the surrounding world, beliefs, the strange and the foreign. The program will therefore aim to shed light on how these essays enable scholars to organise their knowledge and to construct, from scattered fragments from their readings, discussions and anticipations, an invisible or underlying text to which they confront their ideas and erudition, to finally produce discourses on Japanese history, society, and culture.
Method and schedule
Half-day workshops will be held twice a year. Each participant proposes to study either an author or a particular text. Their contents will be approached from the following angles: the sociability of the authors, the context of production and the chronology of publications, material culture, organisational principles and methods, the role of publishers, the modes of expression of the subject, the reception and collection of the sources examined.
Expected results
Publication of a collective work/journal issue and a collection of French translations of representative selections.
Partager
Participants
Leaders
Matthias Hayek
(École Pratique des Hautes Études)
Daniel Struve
(Université Paris Cité)
CRCAO members
Full members
Matthias Hayek
(École Pratique des Hautes Études)
Daniel Struve
(Université Paris Cité)
Annick Horiuchi 堀内アニック・美都
(Université Paris Cité)
Frédéric Girard
(École française d'Extrême-Orient)
François Lachaud
(École française d'Extrême-Orient)
Associated members
Guillaume Carré
(School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences)
Nicolas Mollard
(Université Lyon 3)
Mario Talamo
(University of Catane)
Didier Davin
(National Institute of Japanese Literature 国文学研究資料館)
Research support
Garance Chao Zhang
(École Pratique des Hautes Études)
Post-doctoral
Yuta Segawa
(Independent)
Akiko Hirai
(École Pratique des Hautes Études)
Doctoral students
Laura Agnel
(École Pratique des Hautes Études)
Céline Pisseloup
(École Pratique des Hautes Études)
Etienne Marq
(École Pratique des Hautes Études)
Outside Participants
Gerald Groemer
(Yamanashi University)
Paul Schalow
(Rutgers University)
Didier Davin
(National Institute for Japanese literature)
Christophe Marquet
(EFEO)