DOCSLIB.ORG

SUSAN GORMAN from (French) Automobile to (Beninois)

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
SUSAN GORMAN from (French) Automobile to (Beninois) EnterText 4.2 SUSAN GORMAN From (French) Automobile to (Beninois) Agbo: Mythology, Modernity and Divine Carcasse What happens to mythology, both theoretically and practically, when it circulates from large European cities to African villages? How does European mythology change when confronted with an unfamiliar landscape? How do cultural markers (continue to) signify meaning in foreign situations? The 1998 film Divine Carcasse1 by Dominique Loreau follows a car as it moves from Cotonou (Benin), to the outskirts of Cotonou, and on to the village of Ouassou, changing from being a mode of private transportation to a taxicab to the statue of an ancestral divinity. Through examining issues of mythology, commodities, fetishes, language and the “afterlife,” present in the works of major European critics of modernity and mythology as well as in this particular film, I examine how mythologies are forced to modify themselves. Critical changes and questions concerning the practice of mythology both in Europe and in Africa interweave among major problems concerning the complexities of urban and non-urban myth. I put the work of Louis Aragon, Walter Benjamin and Roland Barthes into dialogue with the film, Divine Carcasse. An in-depth reading of mythology in Benjamin Susan Gorman: From (French) Automobile to (Beninois) Agbo 177 EnterText 4.2 and Barthes would be much too large a project; thus, instead, I firmly ground their theories in the primary text of the film. Divine Carcasse explores what happens when these theoretical European ideas of mythology are moved to an African setting and why that becomes such a productive move. Questions of urban cityscapes and the growing difficulties in conceiving of them, along with the option of movement away from the urban, engage the thought of Rem Koolhaas toward the end of this discussion. What happens when a European urban mythology is confronted with the African village? The film Divine Carcasse was produced in 1998 as a joint production between Belgium and Benin. The “main character” of the film is a car, a 1955 Peugeot, which in the opening shot disembarks from a boat into Benin. The film has been described on the California Newsreel website as “an unusual hybrid, a half fictional, half ethnographic film. It is a study in cultural contrast, between a desacralized materialistic European view of reality and an animist, pre-industrial African one.”2 This work is a fascinating study of ideas of commercialisation, commodities, the fetish and individual/community dynamics. Once the car comes into the harbour and is taken off the boat, it is picked up by Simon, the European expatriate for whom it was imported. He then drives it home to his French community, the members of which deride him for having such an old car. When the car breaks down one time too many, Simon finds a fetish object in the motor and accuses Joseph, a Beninois who works around his house, of putting it there. Fed up with car troubles, Simon gives the car to Joseph, who brings it to his home on the outskirts of Cotonou. When Joseph mentions that the French call such a car, because of its advanced age, an “ancestor,” a friend of his becomes incensed and argues that it is wrong to call a car an ancestor; it is not possible to call a machine an ancestor. Joseph turns the car into a Susan Gorman: From (French) Automobile to (Beninois) Agbo 178 EnterText 4.2 taxi and attempts to earn money from his new possession. After troubles of his own with the car, Joseph returns to his employment at Simon’s and explains to him that he was absent from work since he went to a fetisher who told him to make peace with an ancestor, a maternal uncle who was angry with him. Joseph abandons the car at a mechanic’s garage. It is put up on blocks and scavenged—tyres are removed, car doors, the hood, engine parts, etc. Eventually, it becomes evident to the viewer that the car is being used for parts in order to create something entirely different; the car takes shape into an ancestor statue. The sculptor of the statue meets with four men who have commissioned the statue to be a representation of the divinity Agbo. The statue is then taken by canoe to a remote village where it becomes accepted in a festival by means of a song sung by the village, whereupon it takes part in a religious ceremony in its new form. Urban Mythologies and the Voodoo Fetish In this film, myth emanates from the city and thus it begins an exploration into myth with the major commercial city of Benin: Cotonou. Even before the film brings the viewer there, however, the urban mythological is present. The car comes from France; it is an export. This machine was produced in an urban technologised setting, implied by the automobile’s status as a French import. Louis Aragon, in his 1926 text Le paysan de Paris3 proposes the creation of a modern mythology that takes into consideration the urban landscape—buildings, posters, and man-made institutions. He suggests supplanting any earlier mythology that was based in nature with this more modern one. He walks through the city and is struck by the Susan Gorman: From (French) Automobile to (Beninois) Agbo 179 EnterText 4.2 imagery and illusion he encounters in his everyday life, his modern mythology. Modernity in this understanding requires and creates its own mythology. However, modernity also is explicitly invested in the idea of exposing mythology as false. Immanuel Kant, the paradigmatic figure of modernism, writes that he wants all men to be “liberated from [others’] tutelage” in his famous “What is Enlightenment?” essay.4 After being released from tutelage—especially that of religion and mythology, men are able to use their intellects freely and judiciously. Aragon elaborates upon the idea of a modern mythology throughout his book. He walks through the city and is prompted towards revelations on imagery, illusion, mythology and the urban. The new urban mythology has the capacity to entirely supplant older, nature-based myths. Aragon does not quarrel with the fact that there may be a mythology in modernity. For him, it is evident simply from walking through the city that mythology exists. The modern myths have the same role and the same purpose as the myths based on nature, but, critically, man-made objects inspire them. This idea sets up a space for an understanding of mythology under modernity—a mythology that works with the products of modernity. The car in Divine Carcasse is made into a sort of fetish from the very moment it is taken off the boat. Beninois men covet the car as soon as they see it and attempt to sway the importer into selling it to them, although he refuses to do so. The car is immediately transformed into a “fetish,” understood as an object to which some value or desire becomes attached. For Benjamin, mythology emanates from commodity culture. In “Paris, Capital of the 19th Century,” myth is directly linked to the commodity, or, more specifically, to the Susan Gorman: From (French) Automobile to (Beninois) Agbo 180 EnterText 4.2 fetishizing of the commodity. Around these specific products, mythology arises in a way comparable to how myth springs out of the urban landscape for Aragon. For both, mythology is linked to the everyday and to the city from which they wrote. Similarly to Aragon, Benjamin highlights that it is because of the changing society—represented in Aragon by the modern cityscape and in Benjamin as cultural product—that new mythology can exist. However, Benjamin does not agree entirely with Aragon’s conception of myth. He is not content simply to remark upon the existence of myth. Benjamin instead wants to shatter the complacency that allows for it. Aragon simply remarks that it exists, how and why. Michael Hollington, in his essay “Benjamin, Fourier, Barthes” included in “With the Sharpened Axe of Reason:” Approaches to Benjamin, claims that “though he admired Aragon’s Paysan de Paris, Benjamin distances himself from its ‘mythical’ approach to the arcade: his own project is to serve as a transition or awakening out of the sleep of capitalist modernity and commodity fetishism.”5 Even though Aragon had first proposed this urban idea of mythology, Benjamin wants to push it further in order to examine how one might escape myth, and, indeed, what one would then find. To further explain his understanding, Benjamin writes in Konvolut: whereas Aragon persistently remains in the realm of dreams, here it is a question of finding the constellation of awakening. While an impressionistic element lingers on in Aragon (‘mythology’)...what matters here is the dissolution of ‘mythology’ into the space of history. Of course, that can only happen through the awakening of a knowledge not yet conscious of what has gone before.6 It is this existence of the dream world, created by commodity culture, that creates room for mythology. In “Paris, Capital of the 19th Century,” Benjamin discusses more fully this dream world. He claims that the arcades of Paris are also part of this dream world— Susan Gorman: From (French) Automobile to (Beninois) Agbo 181 EnterText 4.2 they are a prime example of the old mixing with the new. Benjamin writes, “each epoch not only dreams the next, but also, in dreaming, strives towards the moment of waking.”7 Thus, this dreaming and this goal of waking are linked to history as a process that continually happens and can be a connection between different epochs. On a different level, this fetishizing happens in Benin, a centre for voodoo worship that relies extensively upon fetishes in religious practice.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Desiring Myth: History, Mythos and Art in the Work of Flaubert and Proust
    Desiring Myth: History, Mythos and Art in the Work of Flaubert and Proust By Rachel Anne Luckman A thesis submitted for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of French Studies College of Arts and Law The University of Birmingham August 2009 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Abstract Previous comparative and parallel ‘genetic criticisms’ of Flaubert and Proust have ignored the different historical underpinnings that circumscribe the act of writing. This work examines the logos of Flaubert and Proust’s work. I examine the historical specificity of A la recherche du temps perdu, in respect of the gender inflections and class-struggles of the Third French Republic. I also put forward a poetics of Flaubertian history relative to L’Education sentimentale. His historical sense and changes in historiographic methodologies all obliged Flaubert to think history differently. Flaubert problematises both history and psychology, as his characterisations repeatedly show an interrupted duality. This characterization is explicated using René Girard’s theories of psychology, action theory and mediation. Metonymic substitution perpetually prevents the satisfaction of desire and turns life into a series of failures.
    [Show full text]
  • 2013-2014 Newsletter
    WILLIAMS GRADUATE PROGRAM IN THE HISTORY OF ART OFFERED IN COLLABORATION WITH THE CLARK ART INSTITUTE WILLIAMS GRAD ART THE CLARK 2013–2014 NEWSLETTER LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR Marc Gotlieb Dear Alumni, Art Department in the field of African Art, and who will be teaching in the graduate program this spring. Greetings from Williamstown. I hope you enjoy our redesigned alumni newsletter, the last and The newsletter includes a special conversation with most significant phase of a visual identity project Michael Ann Holly, Starr Director of Research that includes the launch of a new website and Emeritus at the Clark, and this year’s Robert other communications pieces designed to capture Sterling Clark Visiting Professor. Many thanks to some of the freshness and contemporaneity of the program and its Ashley Lazevnick MA ’12 and Oliver Wunsch setting. By now many of you have had the opportunity to visit the MA ’11 for taking this on! And many thanks, too, new Clark and its spectacular new wing, including renovated galleries to our post-doctoral fellow, Kristen Oehlrich, for and a reflecting pool looking out over Stone Hill. But there is more to putting this splendid newsletter together. Most of come—the Manton Building, which houses the Graduate Program and all, thanks to our alumni for contributing updates the library, will reopen to the public this summer, with a new spacious to the newsletter! reading room, a new works on paper study center and gallery, and facil- With all best wishes, ities that will bring the entire complex fresh new life. If you do visit, please stop by and say hello—Karen, George, Kristen and I would be Marc delighted to see you.
    [Show full text]
  • The Myth of Holy Grail in Dan Brown's the Da Vinci Code
    THE MYTH OF HOLY GRAIL IN DAN BROWN’S THE DA VINCI CODE THESIS By: MUHAMMAD FATIH AL AZIZ 10320066 ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LETTER DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF HUMANITIES MAULANA MALIK IBRAHIM STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY MALANG 2015 i THE MYTH OF HOLY GRAIL IN DAN BROWN’S THE DA VINCI CODE THESIS Presented to Maulana Malik Ibrahim State Islamic University of Malang Advisor: Mundi Rahayu, M.Hum By: Muhammad Fatih Al Aziz 10320066 ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LETTER DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF HUMANITIES MAULANA MALIK IBRAHIM STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY MALANG 2015 ii APPROVAL SHEET This is to certify that Muhammad Fatih Al Aziz’s thesis entitled The Myth of Holy Grail in Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code has been approved by the thesis advisor for further approval by the Board of Examiners. Malang, June 23, 2015 Approved by Acknowledged by The Advisor, The Head of the Department of English Language and Literature, Mundi Rahayu, M.Hum Dr.Syamsudin, M.Hum NIP. 196802262006042001 NIP. 196911222006041001 The Dean of Faculty of Humanities and Culture Dr.Hj. Isti'adah, M.A NIP. 19670313 199203 2 002 iii LEGITIMATION SHEET This is to certify that Muhammad Fatih Al Aziz’s thesis entitled “The Myth of Holy Grail in Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code” has been approved by the Board of Examiners as the requirement for the degree of Sarjana in Humanity. The Board of Examiners Signatures Muzakki Afifuddin, M.Pd NIP. 197610112011011005 Dr. Syamsudin, M.Hum NIP. 196911222006041001 Mundi Rahayu, M.Hum NIP. 196802262006042001 Approved by The Dean of the Faculty of Humanities Maulana Malik Ibrahim State Islamic University, Malang Dr.Hj.
    [Show full text]
  • David Garrioch, Religious Identities and the Meaning of Things In
    Religious Identities in Eighteenth-Century Paris 17 Religious Identities and the Meaning of Things in Eighteenth-Century Paris David Garrioch On January 6, 1777, Manon Phlippon had an adventure. She was twenty-three, the daughter of a respectable engraver and is better known to most people by her later married name of Madame Roland. It was the fête des rois, she was at home alone and she did something she would not normally have done. Donning her servant’s clothes—a short skirt and ragged top with a large red apron and a coarse cotton cloak—she went out to discover the city. As she pushed her way through the crowds, unchaperoned and unrecognized, she experienced a new sense of freedom, “jostled by people who would have made way for me if they had seen me in my finery.”1 Her observation, recorded in a letter to a friend, is a reminder that what Daniel Roche has called the “hierarchy of appearances” was still important in late eighteenth-century Paris. Rank was marked by dress and people reacted accordingly. Largely thanks to Roche’s work, clothing is the best-known aspect of Paris material culture in this period, but it was only one of the markers of social identity. People also indicated who they were through their choice of furniture and of other objects with which they surrounded themselves. Scientific accessories like thermometers, barometers and maps pointed to a modern man of science, a devotee of the Enlightenment, while musical instruments were an accessory for a lady of quality.2 Both were markers of status and of gender.
    [Show full text]
  • Nuclear Deterrent Cooperation Involving Britain, France, and Germany
    Calhoun: The NPS Institutional Archive Theses and Dissertations Thesis Collection 1998-12 Nuclear deterrent cooperation involving Britain, France, and Germany Funtanilla, Neil E. Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School http://hdl.handle.net/10945/32631 NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL Monterey, California THESIS NUCLEAR DETERRENT COOPERATION INVOLVING BRITAIN, FRANCE, AND GERMANY by Neil E. Funtanilla December 1998 Thesis Advisor: David S. Yost Second Reader: Tjarck C. Roessler Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. FOm! Approved REPORT DOCUMENTATION PAGE OMB No. 0704-0188 Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instruction, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to Washington headquarters Services, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports, 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204, Arlington, VA 22202-4302, and to the Office of Management and Budget, Paperwork Reduction Project (0704-0188) Washington DC 20503. 1. AGENCY USE ONLY (Leave blank) 2. REPORT DATE 3. REPORT TYPE AND DATES December 1998 COVERED Master's Thesis 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE 5. FUNDING NUMBERS Nuclear Deterrent Cooperation Involving Britain, France, and Germany 6. AUTHOR(S) Funtanilla, Neil E. 8. PERFORMING 7. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) ORGANIZATION REPORT Naval Postgraduate School NUMBER Monterey, CA 93943-5000 9. SPONSORING I MONITORING AGENCY NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) 10. SPONSORING I MONITORING AGENCY REPORT NUMBER N/A 11. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES The views expressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • History and Religion Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche Und Vorarbeiten
    History and Religion Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten Herausgegeben von Jörg Rüpke und Christoph Uehlinger Band 68 History and Religion Narrating a Religious Past Edited by Bernd-Christian Otto, Susanne Rau and Jörg Rüpke with the support of Andrés Quero-Sánchez ISBN 978-3-11-044454-4 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-044595-4 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-043725-6 ISSN 0939-2580 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2015 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck ∞ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com TableofContents Historyand Religion 1 Section I Origins and developments Introduction 21 Johannes Bronkhorst The historiography of Brahmanism 27 Jörg Rüpke Construing ‘religion’ by doinghistoriography: The historicisation of religion in the Roman Republic 45 Anders Klostergaard Petersen The use of historiography in Paul: Acase-study of the instrumentalisation of the past in the context of Late Second Temple Judaism 63 Ingvild Sælid Gilhus Flirty fishing and poisonous serpents: Epiphanius of Salamis inside his Medical chestagainstheresies 93 Sylvie Hureau Reading sutras in biographies of Chinese Buddhist monks 109 Chase F. Robinson Historyand
    [Show full text]
  • 2014-2015 Newsletter
    WILLIAMS GRADUATE PROGRAM IN THE HISTORY OF ART OFFERED IN COLLABORATION WITH THE CLARK ART INSTITUTE WILLIAMS GRAD ART THE CLARK 2014–2015 NEWSLETTER LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR Marc Gotlieb Dear Alumni, You will find more information inside this news- letter. I very much hope you enjoy this year’s Greetings from Williamstown, and welcome edition. And once again, many thanks to Kristen to the 2014 – 15 edition of the Graduate Art Oehlrich for shepherding this complicated publi- Newsletter. Our first year class has just returned cation from initial conception into your hands! from an exciting trip to Vienna and Paris, while here on the ground we are in the final weeks With all best wishes, before the phased re-opening of the Manton Research Center. The Marc Graduate Program suite will be completely refurbished as part of the renovation, including a larger classroom and other important ameni- ties—please come take a look. This has also been a significant year for transitions—Michael Holly has returned to teach for a year, while a search gets underway for a new director of the Clark, a new curatorial staff too. For its part the Williams Art Department will also be making new, continuing appointments this year and in the years ahead. All these changes will of course profoundly color the teaching complement of the Graduate Program in the years ahead, as a new generation of instructors arrives in Williamstown and at once embraces and remakes the Williams experi- TEACH IT FORWARD 3 ence in graduate education. FACULTY AND STAFF NEWS 5 This past fall Williams launched its campaign Teach it Forward.
    [Show full text]
  • Nationalism in Ireland: Archaeology, Myth, and Identity
    University of Mississippi eGrove Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 2013 Nationalism In Ireland: Archaeology, Myth, And Identity Elaine Kirby Tolbert University of Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd Part of the Archaeological Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Tolbert, Elaine Kirby, "Nationalism In Ireland: Archaeology, Myth, And Identity" (2013). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 362. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/362 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Nationalism in Ireland: Archaeology, Myth, and Identity A Thesis presented in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology The University of Mississippi by: Elaine Tolbert May 2013 Copyright Elaine Tolbert 2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT A nation is defined by a collective identity that is constructed in part through interpretation of past places and events. In this paper, I examine the links between nationalism and archaeology and how the past is used in the construction of contemporary Irish national identity. In Ireland, national identity has been influenced by interpretation of ancient monuments, often combining the mythology and the archaeology of these sites. I focus on three celebrated monumental sites at Navan Fort, Newgrange, and the Hill of Tara, all of which play prominent roles in Irish mythology and have been extensively examined through archaeology. I examine both the mythology and the archaeology of these sites to determine the relationship between the two and to understand how this relationship between mythology and archaeology influences Irish identity.
    [Show full text]
  • CHILDREN of the REVOCATION: the REEDUCATION of FRENCH PROTESTANTS AFTER 1685 by ELIZABETH ANN CHURCHICH a Dissertation Submitted
    CHILDREN OF THE REVOCATION: THE REEDUCATION OF FRENCH PROTESTANTS AFTER 1685 By ELIZABETH ANN CHURCHICH A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School – New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in History under the direction of Dr. Jennifer Jones and approved by ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey May 2013 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Children of the Revocation: The Reeducation of French Protestants after 1685 by ELIZABETH ANN CHURCHICH Dissertation Director: Jennifer M. Jones, Ph.D. This dissertation examines the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in late seventeenth-century France and its connections to the absolutist monarchy of Louis XIV and the shifting educational ideals of the period. Focusing on the detailed implementation of the edict in Paris, it discusses the importance of the development of a new bureaucratic structure that allowed Louis XIV to remain relatively involved in the details of implementation, while entrusting the daily operations to individuals loyal to the crown. Placing the Revocation in the context of administrative expansion, growing central control, and idealized Christian kingship, Louis XIV’s decision to end toleration of Protestantism in France becomes clearer. It also argues that education and social reform were central in the conception and execution of this edict, and that the Revocation was part of a moment in which conversion through education appeared possible. In combining religious conversion and education in an effort to form Protestants into French Catholics, Louis XIV built upon an absolutist vision of education and connected his efforts to a flourishing debate.
    [Show full text]
  • Narrating the North. Towards a Theory of Mythemes of Social Knowledge in Cultural Circulation Thomas Mohnike
    Narrating the North. Towards a theory of mythemes of social knowledge in cultural circulation Thomas Mohnike To cite this version: Thomas Mohnike. Narrating the North. Towards a theory of mythemes of social knowledge in cultural circulation. Deshima. Revue d’histoire globale des Pays du Nord, Université Marc Bloch Département d’études néerlandaises, 2020. hal-03020605 HAL Id: hal-03020605 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03020605 Submitted on 24 Nov 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Narrating the North Towards a Theory of Mythemes of Social Knowledge in Cultural Circulation Thomas Mohnike* “Narratives exist, just like life” Le récit est là, comme la vie.1 ince the end of the 19th century, numerous studies have been conducted to analyze different representations of the North Sand Northerness and the use of such representations in cultural history.2 In these studies, scholars are often intrigued by the observation * However exploratory the ideas presented in this article might be, they are the fruit of several years of research and exchange with numerous colleagues and friends that contributed to the elaboration and modification at various states.
    [Show full text]
  • Reception and Commentary of Nihon Shoki, Japan's First Official History
    Rewriting the Past: Reception and Commentary of Nihon shoki, Japan’s First Official History Matthieu Anthony James Felt Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2017 © 2017 Matthieu Anthony James Felt All rights reserved ABSTRACT Rewriting the Past: Reception and Commentary of Nihon shoki, Japan’s First Official History Matthieu Anthony James Felt This study traces the diverse interpretations of Japan’s oldest official history, the 720 Nihon shoki, from its earliest scholarly treatment in the ninth century until its enshrinement within the canon of Japanese national literature in the modern period. Elites in the early eighth century produced a number of texts that described the fundamental principles of the world and the contours of the Japanese empire, such as Kojiki (712), Kaifūsō (751), Man’yōshū (late 8th c.), and as the official court narrative, Nihon shoki. While each of these possesses its own “imperial imagination,” Nihon shoki is distinct because it heavily incorporates historical polities across Northeast Asia, especially on the Korean peninsula, in creating a narrative of ancient Japan in the world. Further, Nihon shoki, while written primarily in Literary Sinitic, also includes elements of the Japanese vernacular, and rather than delineating a single orthodox narrative, provides a number of alternative, conflicting accounts of Japanese mythology. These characteristics animated much of the debate surrounding the text’s proper reading and meaning as later commentators grappled with its exegesis. The dissertation comprises an introduction and five chapters. The first chapter analyzes the discourse surrounding the Nihon shoki in the eighth and ninth centuries, when lectures were periodically given on the text at court.
    [Show full text]
  • The Structural Study of Myth
    7KH6WUXFWXUDO6WXG\RI0\WK $XWKRU V &ODXGH/«YL6WUDXVV 6RXUFH7KH-RXUQDORI$PHULFDQ)RONORUH9RO1R0\WK$6\PSRVLXP 2FW'HF SS 3XEOLVKHGE\American Folklore Society 6WDEOH85/http://www.jstor.org/stable/536768 . $FFHVVHG Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=folk. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. American Folklore Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of American Folklore. http://www.jstor.org THE STRUCTURAL STUDY OF MYTH BY CLAUDELEVI-STRAUSS "It would seem that mythological worlds have been built up only to be shatteredagain, and that new worlds were built from the fragments." Franz Boas, in Introduction to James Teit, Traditions of the Thompson River Indians of British Columbia, Memoirs of the American Folklore Society, VI (I898), i8.
    [Show full text]