Aesthetics of Space: Representations of Travel in Medieval Japan by Kendra D. Strand A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Asian Languages and Cultures) in The University of Michigan 2015 Doctoral Committee: Emerita Professor Esperanza Ramirez-Christensen, Chair Associate Professor Kevin Gray Carr Professor Ken K. Ito, University of Hawai‘i Manoa Associate Professor Jonathan E. Zwicker © Kendra D. Strand 2015 Dedication To Gregory, whose adventurous spirit has made this work possible, and to Emma, whose good humor has made it a joy. ii Acknowledgements Kind regards are due to a great many people I have encountered throughout my graduate career, but to my advisors in particular. Esperanza Ramirez-Christensen has offered her wisdom and support unfalteringly over the years. Under her guidance, I have begun to learn the complexities in the spare words of medieval Japanese poetry, and more importantly to appreciate the rich silences in the spaces between those words. I only hope that I can some day attain the subtlety and dexterity with which she is able to do so. Ken Ito and Jonathan Zwicker have encouraged me to think about Japanese literature and to develop my voice in ways that would never have been possible otherwise, and Kevin Carr has always been incredibly generous with his time and knowledge in discussing visual cultural materials of medieval Japan. I am indebted to them for their patience, their attention, and for initiating me into their respective fields. I am grateful to all of the other professors and mentors with whom I have had the honor of working at the University of Michigan and elsewhere: Markus Nornes, Micah Auerback, Hitomi Tonomura, Leslie Pinkus, William Baxter, David Rolston, Miranda Brown, Laura Grande, Youngju Ryu, Christi Merrill, Celeste Brusati, Martin Powers, Mariko Okada, Keith Vincent, Catherine Ryu, Edith Sarra, Keller Kimbrough, Maggie Childs, and Dennis Washburn. Thanks, too, to Professor Mayumi Oka and her team of Japanese language instructors, Masae Yasuda, Yoshihiro Mochizuki, Yoshimi Sakakibara, Ayaka Sogabe, Kenji Endo, Junko Kondo, and Satoko Tsuda-Petty, in whose pedagogical skill and dedication to constant improvement I have found great inspiration. iii I will be content if I can learn to command a classroom with half as much precision and grace. Kenji Niki, Mari Suzuki and Keiko Yokota-Carter at the Hatcher Graduate Asia Library have always met my inquiries with enthusiasm and resourcefulness. Cornelius Wright, Patti Mosseau, Yuri Fukuzawa, Ann Takata, Karen Munson, Ashlee Wolfe, Nicole Rutherford, Nikki Branch, Deborah Southern, and Wendy Burr were each a friendly and reliable source of support at various stages throughout my time as a graduate student. For making Ann Arbor a second home to my family and I, thanks go to my friends Rebecca Fried, Alexander and Kisaki Watanabe, Yu Holmes, and Candice Wendt; to my cohort, Avani Taylor, Jeremy Saul, Michael Arnold, and Saul Allen; to my colleagues Kirk Ott, Nirinjan Khalsa, Anna Fodde-Reguer, Lenore Szekely, Kate Wright, Ignacio Villagran, Martino Dibultelo; and to my senpai and kôhai in Japanese Studies, Jason Herlands, Kristina Vassil, Andrea Landis, Molly Des Jardin, Brian Dowdle, Sherry Funches, Aaron Proffitt, Kevin Mulholland, Mellissa Van Wyk, and Esther Ladkau. The Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan supported my graduate studies for five years, but also provided abundant opportunities to learn and develop beyond the seminar room. I am also grateful to the Center for Japanese Studies, the International Institute, and the Rackham Graduate School for making possible the occasions for research and language study, and above all, for supporting my time in Japan and at the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language in Yokohama. I count myself lucky to have had the chance to work with all of my teachers at IUC, especially Kiyomi Kushida, Tomotaro Akizawa, and James Baxter. Fellow classmates iv Felice Forby, Gloria Yu Yang, Maya Stiller, John Oglevee, Carrie Cushman, Aleksandr Sklyar, and Will Burton made it a memorable experience. I value the guidance I received from Professors Judith Rabinovitch, Yuka Tachibana, Steven Levine, and Clary Loisel at the University of Montana, and from my friends and teachers Tom Graff, Yoshiaki Matsuda, David Wilson, Lorilee Evans-Lynn, and the late Sally Scott. Without their influence I may never have set out on this path to begin with. Finally, my friends and family have counted among the surest and most constant source of support. Christina Hull was an early role model close to home, and Chad Langford commissioned my first translation outside of my work as a graduate student. Sarah Dolph made the best possible companion on what was for each of us the first of several experiences living in Japan, and Marie Kreuter has been a dependable friend and writing partner. Mattie Andersen, Nathan Junkert, Rachel Langford, Linda and Darrell Strand, Tim Strand, and Kristin and Scott Parrott have always shown confidence in my ability to finish this project, even during those moments when I entertained doubts. My late grandfather, Russell Bay, was quite possibly my earliest model of a passionate reader. My father, Glenn Junkert, introduced me to the thrill of writing poetry and reciting it aloud, and my mother, Carol Junkert, with keen ear for prose and subtle editorial eye, has ever been my first and most invaluable reader. Thank you. v Preface My first time in Japan, I was living in a small town in Hokkaido as an undergraduate intern. A few months after settling in, I took a trip to Hakodate with my classmate, Sarah. The city is on a narrow strip of land that juts into the ocean, and it is famous for its stunning night view. Although I did not know then, the view of Hakodate from Mount Hakodate 函館山 enjoys the designation of one of the “Three Great Night Views” of Japan. The other two are the views of Kobe and Osaka Bay from the Rokkô Mountains 六甲山地, and of Nagasaki from Mount Inasa 稲佐山. On the first night, we made the trek up Mount Hakodate. We claimed an open spot on the viewing deck, looked for a moment, and then promptly picked up our cameras. The first shot I took was blurry, but more disappointing was the strip along the bottom that showed the backs of all the other tourists who were gathered at the railing, taking pictures of their own. The next shot I took managed a fuller view of the city lights, and without the crowd, but I disliked it for the single cropped head in the lower right corner. vi Figure 1: My first attempt at capturing the night view of Hakodate, from the observation deck on Mount Hakodate. Figure 2: The second attempt. vii The next day Sarah and I stopped by a purikura photo booth. We posed in front of the blank backdrop, and then we were prompted to select one of five scenes of Hakodate. Within moments we each had a postcard featuring our smiling faces superimposed over a professional photograph of the city, with a crisp network of lights, and swirling, deep blues in the sky, clouds, ocean, and distant mountain range. Figure 3: Souvenir postcard from the purikura photo booth in Hakodate, depicting in the background the night view from the same observation deck on Mount Hakodate. I had felt compelled to take a few photos as a keepsake of my visit to Hakodate, and the resulting images had some documentary value, for we were indeed sharing the view with all those other people. When I look at those photos, I am viscerally reminded of the heat and humidity of the summer night, and the unusual muted hum that can only be produced by a crowd of strangers milling about in the darkness together. The photos were both a representation and a trace of that experience. Despite this, the postcard better reproduces my memory of having been able to see the lights, ocean, sky, and mountains just as they viii appear in the postcard. My memory is clearer than the view that is imprinted on my own photographs. My experience of the place, my memory of it, and my attempts at representing that experience may be parallel and complementary to each other, but they do not precisely align. Although it was a complete fabrication, I valued the postcard as evidence of having visited the famous site, for it replicates my being there, as though we had stood against the railing while someone took our picture. But that view of our faces and those of the scenery never “really” existed. They were recorded at different times, and at different places. Each record—the professional photograph, the photos that I took myself, and the shot of Sarah and me in the purikura booth—represents a difference instance, and all of those instances took place over a period much longer than the moment in which a single photograph is taken, extending to at least a few days, but likely much longer, since it is uncertain when the professional photograph of Hakodate was taken. This is what travel is. It is an amalgamation of places and moments seen through the filter of culture, experience, memory, and representation. “Traveler” is a role that we take on when we leave our homes and go to another place. But the place is almost never entirely new, because there tends to be something that draws us there, whether this is its renown for a certain landscape view, a famous food, or for its association with some historical figure. A journey is the process of going to the place, experiencing it through all of the senses, and then making representations of that place in some way, whether as memories, as photographs, paintings, diary entries, or otherwise.