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Women, Rites, and Ritual Objects in Premodern Japan, edited by Karen M. Gerhart, is a multidisciplinary examination of rituals featuring women, in which significant attention is paid to objects produced for and utilized in these rites as a lens through which larger cultural concerns, such as gender politics, the female body, and the materiality of the ritual objects, are explored. The ten chapters encounter women, rites, and ritual objects in many new and interactive ways and constitute a pioneering attempt to combine ritual and gendered analysis with the study of objects.
Contributors include: Anna Andreeva, Monica Bethe, Patricia Fister, Sherry Fowler, Karen M. Gerhart, Hank Glassman, Naoko Gunji, Elizabeth Morrissey, Chari Pradel, Barbara Ruch, Elizabeth Self.
Contributors include: Anna Andreeva, Monica Bethe, Patricia Fister, Sherry Fowler, Karen M. Gerhart, Hank Glassman, Naoko Gunji, Elizabeth Morrissey, Chari Pradel, Barbara Ruch, Elizabeth Self.
Price: $192.00
Pages: 412
Publisher: Brill
Imprint: Brill
Series: Brill's Japanese Studies Library
Publication Date:
05 July 2018
ISBN: 9789004370111
Format: Hardcover
'Women, Rites, and Ritual Objects in Premodern Japan is an invaluable volume not just for scholars of premodern Japan but also for anyone with an interest in material culture. Whether we acknowledge this or not, it is largely through a carefully constructed symbolic order that we as human beings create and mark our places in the world and navigate our way through life and its many challenges.' - Yui Suzuki, University of Maryland, in: Monumenta Nipponica 74:1 (2019).
'a rare insight into the still largely veiled and thus lesser-known world of rites and rituals concerning women and female deities in premodern Japan.(...) serves therefore as an important pioneer in the field; hence, it is warmly recommended to all students of Japanese religions.' - Lehel Balogh, Hokkaido University, in: Religious Studies Review 45/3 (2019)
'The studies range widely in terms of source material and period; nevertheless,the volume’s clear thematic focus yields a greater degree of cohesion than one often sees in an edited volume. In fact, reading the essays together, as one would a monograph, produces a powerful effect: the chapters reflect and refract each other in subtly provocative ways, such that the entire book enacts a kind of historicist scintillation.(...) To the credit of the publisher, the format for Women, Rites, and Ritual Objects is wonderfully expansive. Ample illustrations, many in full color,provide welcome context and enable readers to follow arguments rooted in visual analysis. Overall, the book is a must-have for libraries and for the individual reader who can afford it. It is an important contribution to Japan studies in the areas of religious history, visual culture, and, of course, women’s history.' - Heather Blair, Journal of Japanese Studies 46:2 (2020)
'a rare insight into the still largely veiled and thus lesser-known world of rites and rituals concerning women and female deities in premodern Japan.(...) serves therefore as an important pioneer in the field; hence, it is warmly recommended to all students of Japanese religions.' - Lehel Balogh, Hokkaido University, in: Religious Studies Review 45/3 (2019)
'The studies range widely in terms of source material and period; nevertheless,the volume’s clear thematic focus yields a greater degree of cohesion than one often sees in an edited volume. In fact, reading the essays together, as one would a monograph, produces a powerful effect: the chapters reflect and refract each other in subtly provocative ways, such that the entire book enacts a kind of historicist scintillation.(...) To the credit of the publisher, the format for Women, Rites, and Ritual Objects is wonderfully expansive. Ample illustrations, many in full color,provide welcome context and enable readers to follow arguments rooted in visual analysis. Overall, the book is a must-have for libraries and for the individual reader who can afford it. It is an important contribution to Japan studies in the areas of religious history, visual culture, and, of course, women’s history.' - Heather Blair, Journal of Japanese Studies 46:2 (2020)
Karen M. Gerhart, Ph.D. (1992), is Professor of Japanese Art History at the University of Pittsburgh. She has published monographs and articles on Japan, including The Eyes of Power: Art and Early Tokugawa Authority (1999) and The Material Culture of Death in Medieval Japan (2009).