VISUAL PRACTICES OF JAPANESE BUDDHISM

This course explores the institutional, intellectual and devotional dimension of Buddhism in Japan, focusing on its visual and performative practices. The aim of the course is to balance the attention to the ideas and doctrinal issues that underpin the development of discrete religious traditions and the analysis of the practice of religion as an inclusive phenomenon expressed through rituals, narratives and images. Each topic will be further used to discuss methodological approaches to Buddhism and current trends in the academic discourse on Japanese religion.
The formative objectives of this course are within the area of the disciplines necessary for in-depth study of Buddhism and its cultural, historical, and social contexts.

Knowledge and understanding:
-good knowledge of the institutional, intellectual and devotional practices that Buddhists developed in Japan
- good knowledge of the academic approaches to the study of Buddhism, including its visual practices, in East Asia and in the West.
Applying knowledge and understanding:
- ability to analyse and contextualize religious practices in Japan
Making judgments:
-ability to evaluate competing interpretative frameworks critically
-ability to evaluate diverse sources for the study of Buddhism
Communication skills:
-ability to communicate ideas in writing and orally
Learning skills:
- ability to synthesise information from a range of sources
-ability to undertake independent study and research

There are no prerequisites for this course, but a general knowledge of Japanese history and religious landscape will benefit the learning process.

(Not final --some topics may change. Final schedule will be posted on Moodle.)
1. Introduction to the course.
Framework: Form, no form and the modern reception of Buddhism
2. Context: Buddhism in Japan
A historical overview
3. Sources of Buddhist ‘visual’ knowledge
Buddhist practice and the ritual anthologies
4. Making Buddhist artefacts
Asceticism and technology (Documentary)
5. Sutras: copying, printing, holding
A case study: the Lotus Sutra
6. Hells and Pure Lands
The cosmology of Buddhism
7. The world as a mandala
Buddha-bodies and the form of Tantric reality
8. Zen iconoclasm?
The aesthetic of Japanese Buddhism
Spirits, ghosts and rituals
9. The Buddhist shape of local gods
Shinbutsu and the combinatory identity of Japanese religion
10. Buddhist maps
The marginality of Japan
Japan as the divine land
11. Conference
12. The Buddhist world of an artist
Temples, processions and miracles in the city of Edo
Hokusai and Lotus Buddhism
13. Calligraphic Icons
The name of the Buddha & the title of the sutra
14. Museum visit
15. Final discussion

Bogel, Cynthea, With a Single Glance: Buddhist Icons and Early Mikkyo Visions, Seattle: U Washington Press, 2010.
Cuevas. Brian. & J.I. Stone, eds. The Buddhist Dead: Practices, Discourses, Representations. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2007.
Dolce, Lucia, The Practice of Religion in Japan: An Exploration of the State of the Field, in Handbook of Modern Japanese Studies, James Babb ed., Sage Publications, 2015, pp. 33-63
Dolce, Lucia, “Mapping the “Divine Country:” Sacred Geography and International Concerns in Mediaeval Japan,” in Korea in the Middle, Remco E. Breuker ed., Leiden: CNWS Publications, 2007, pp. 288-312.
Faure, Bernard, “The Buddhist Icon and the Modern Gaze,” Critical Inquiry 24/3 (1998): 768 -813.
Faure, Bernard, Gods of Medieval Japan. 4 vols., Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2016.
Gerhart, Karen M. The Material Culture of Death in Medieval Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2009.
Graham, Patricia Faith and Power in Japanese Buddhist Art 1600-2005, Hawaii University Press, 2007.
Grapard, Allan, Mountain Mandalas: Shugendō in Kyushu, London: Bloomsbury, 2017.
Heine and Wright, Zen Ritual, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Hirasawa, Caroline, Hell-Bent for Heaven in Tateyama: Painting and Religious Practice at a Japanese Mountain, Brill, 2013.
Hisamatsu Shin’ichi, “On Zen Art,” Marburg Journal of Religion, 17, 2013.
Kamikawa Michio, “Accession Rituals and Buddhism in Medieval Japan,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 17/2-3 (1990): 243–80.
Kaminishi, Ikumi, Explaining Pictures: Buddhist Propaganda and Etoki Storytelling in Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2006.
Kim, Sujung, Shinra Myōjin and Buddhist Networks of the East Asian “Mediterranean,” Honolulu: Hawaii UP, 2019.
Levine, Gregory, Two (or More) Truths: Reconsidering Zen Art in the West, in Awakenings: Zen Figure Paintings from Medieval Japan, Gregory Levine and Yukio Lippit, eds., Yale University Press, 2007, 52-63.
Loewe, Brian, Ritualized Writing: Buddhist Practice and Scriptural Cultures in Ancient Japan, Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2017.
McCallum, Donald, Four Great Temples: Buddhist Archaeology, Architecture, and Icons of Seventh-century Japan, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2009.
Morgan, D. 2005. The sacred gaze. Religious visual culture in theory and practice. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Morse, Anne Nishimura and Morse, Samuel Crowell, Object as Insight; Japanese Buddhist Art and Ritual, Kotonah Museum of Art, New York, 1995.
Nakamura, Kyoko, Miraculous Stories from the Japanese Buddhist Traditions, Harvard University Press, 1973.
O’ Neal, Halle, Word Embodied: The Jeweled Pagoda Mandalas in Japanese Buddhist Art, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018.
Rambelli, Fabio, Buddhist Materialities, Stanford, 200.
Rambelli, Fabio and Eric Reinders, Buddhism and Iconoclasm in East Asia: A History, London: Bloomsbury, 2012.
Rethinking Medieval Shinto, a special issue of Cahiers d’Êxtreme Asie 16 (2006-7)
Sharf, Robert, and Elizabeth Horton Sharf, ed., Living Images: Japanese Buddhist Icons in Context, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001.
Suzuki, Yui, “Temple as Museum, Buddha as Art. Hôryûji Kidara Kannon and its great repository,” Res 52 (2007): 128-140.
Suzuki Yui, Medicine Master Buddha, Leiden: Brill, 2002.
Teiser, Stephen F. and Jacqueline I. Stone, eds., Readings of the Lotus Sūtra, NY: Columbia University Press, 2009
ten Grotenhuis, Elizabeth, Japanese Mandalas: Representations of Sacred Geography, Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999.
Tinsley, Elizabeth, “The Composition of Decomposition: Erotic-Grotesque Modernity in Buddhist Kusozu
Winfield, Pamela, Icons and Iconoclasm in Japanese Buddhism: Kûkai and Dôgen on the Art of Enlightenment, Oxford

In class, throughout the course: 15-min group presentations, worth 30% of the final mark. The timing of class presentations will be determined at the beginning of the year, taking into account the number of students on the course. A single mark is assigned to each of the students in the team.
Final exam: oral exam, worth 70% of the final mark.

oral

The lecturer has a duty to ensure that the rules regarding the authenticity and originality of exam tests and papers are respected. Therefore, if there is suspicion of irregular conduct, an additional assessment may be conducted, which could differ from the original exam description.

A. Scores in the 18-22 range will be awarded in the presence of:
- sufficient knowledge and applied comprehension skills;
- limited ability to analyze and interpret philosophical and religious texts;
- sufficient communication skills, especially concerning the use of specific language.

B. Scores in the 23-26 range will be awarded in the presence of:
- fair knowledge and applied comprehension skills;
- discrete ability to analyze and interpret philosophical and religious texts;
- fair communication skills, especially concerning the use of specific language.

C. Scores in the 27-30 range will be awarded in the presence of:
- good or very good knowledge and applied comprehension skills;
- good or excellent ability to analyze and interpret philosophical and religious texts;
- fully appropriate communication skills, especially concerning the use of specific language.

D. "lode" will be awarded in the presence of excellent knowledge and applied understanding, excellent judgment and excellent communication skills.

Classes consist of two-hour slots roughly divided into:
-a frontal lecture session that provides an overview of the topic and the issues it presents, using a variety of materials;
-seminar discussion led by students, where a group of students presents the results of their reading of/research on the topic of the week to the class. (The format may not be exactly the same every week.)

It is strongly recommended that you participate in the activities set for each week, including reading prior to the lecture and engaging in class discussion. Reading materials, podcasts and other sources for each week are available on the Moodle page of the course. In each session you will find one discussion paper, as well as other general or further readings intended to give you the context and extend your familiarity with the topic. You are requested to read and reflect on the discussion paper. However, the more you read the more you will be able to take part in the conversation and enjoy the course.