THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO THE STINK OF THE EARTH: REORIENTING DISCOURSES OF TSUGARU, FURUSATO, AND PLACE A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE HUMANITIES IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF EAST ASIAN LANGUAGES AND CIVILIZATIONS BY JOSHUA LEE SOLOMON CHICAGO, ILLINOIS JUNE 2017 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………..……………..iii ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………….…………….vii INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………...1 CHAPTER 1: SMELLING MUSIC: NEW APPROACHES TO TSUGARU MUSIC………………………...31 CHAPTER 2: YOU CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN: TERAYAMA SHŪJI’S RADICAL REINVENTION OF FURUSATO…………...…………...104 CHAPTER 3: TSUGARU VERNACULAR LITERATURE AND THE PRACTICE OF PLACE CONSCIOUSNESS…………….…………………....….148 MUSUBI…….………………………………………………………………………………….228 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………………235 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS As I reflect upon the long process of study, research, and writing that went into this dissertation, I cannot help but feel a deep sense of gratitude and profound respect for the many people who have contributed in many different ways along the journey. Over the years, I have found myself constantly surprised, and sometimes awed, by the consistent thoughtfulness, generosity, creativity, and geniality of the academic community, nowhere more so than in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. This is exceptionally true in the case of Michael Bourdaghs, my primary advisor and dissertation committee chair, who for reasons I can only imagine decided to accept a student with little more than a B.A. from a vanishingly small liberal arts college and a research interest barely amounting to “something to do with Tsugaru-jamisen.” He contributed to the development of my project not only through teaching thought-provoking seminars and carefully reading many of my various drafts, but also by acting as a veritable font of knowledge, always ready to introduce me to a book or three pertinent to my project. Reginald Jackson, my second committee member, was extremely influential during my early years as a graduate student, teaching and demonstrating in practice how much more can always be squeezed from a text through close reading, and how the tensions between the personal and the professional can be played out in productive ways on the page. He was also responsible for introducing me to performance theory and classical Japanese, two topics which continue to play an important role in my research, if in altered form. Hoyt Long, my third committee member, provided insightful critiques of my drafts and meticulously detailed comments which helped to improve the clarity and accuracy of my writing in its latest stages. iii The closeness of our professional interests in terms of both methodology and content meant that we always had common ground to discuss, and felt stakes in very similar issues. The research conducted for this dissertation was supported by funding from several sources, including a Fulbright Fellowship, Fulbright DDRA Fellowship, as well as funding from the University of Chicago Center for East Asian Studies. Staff members of the Hirosaki public library, Hirosaki University library, Hirosaki Kyōdo Bungakkan, and the Museum of Modern Aomori Literature have all been very helpful. I especially want to acknowledge how accommodating the Kyōdo Bungakkan has been in allowing me to access rare manuscripts, and the Museum of Modern Aomori Literature for providing remote access to certain resources as well. Thank you too to the proprietor of Narita Shoten, which has been an invaluable resource in this project as well. This paper is a contemplation of origins, and thus I am obliged to acknowledge the people who afforded me the opportunity to begin this process; my point of embarkation. Matthew Mizenko is unquestionably the most key figure in launching my academic career. I am indebted to him not only for introducing me to critical theory and overseeing the majority of my undergraduate thesis, but also for continuing to support me through my first Fulbright fellowship and graduate school applications. I am also grateful for the education and support of Holly Hubbs and the rest of the Ursinus community. In Chicago, I benefited greatly by being surrounded by motivated and inspiring colleagues. Zhang Han and Carly Buxton, who were there from the very beginning, were wonderful people to learn alongside with, and acted as bastions of both intellectual and moral support. Scott Aalgaard, Nick Lambrecht, Brian White, and Alex Murphy each contributed in their own ways to this project, and our discussions would often meander into surprising territory iv and sometimes probably later into the evening than they ought to have. Kathryn Tanaka was a boon during some of the doldrums of the writing process, and has gone out of her way to provide opportunities to help me grow professionally. Nicholas Albertson, Scott Mehl, Mika Endo, Xu Peng, Tom Kelly, and Daniela Licandro, as well as Paola Iovene, Kyeong-Hee Choi, Judith Zeitlin, and Susan Burns also contributed in more tangential ways. The UChicago Japanese poetry group was also a regular source of inspiration and challenge, and I thank Katagiri Yoko, David Krolikoski, Norma Field, and the other participants who joined us over the years. All of the participants in the Art and Politics in East Asia workshop provided substantial feedback at several stages in the process. I am also very happy to acknowledge all of the members of the Tsugaru “folk music” community who have contributed to this project over the years in so many different ways: first and foremost, Shibutani Kazuo, who freely gave of his time to teach me the basics of Tsugaru- jamisen, allowed me access to his extensive collection of rare min’yō books, and whose reputation opened many doors for me during my earliest ethnographic forays. I also appreciate the cooperation of Satō Michiyoshi and Satō Michihiro, Shimada Ayaka, Gareth Burns, Kevin Kmetz, Yamashita-sensei and the members of the Tōnichi School, Imai-san, Osanai-seinsei, the Adohadari family, Manji-sensei, Fukushi Toyokatsu, the Hirosaki University shamisen club and the members of the Tada School, as well as many others. At Hirosaki University, Anthony Rausch was a stable presence keeping me focused on pragmatically preparing for the future. Tomita Akira sponsored me as a research student my first year in Hirosaki, and generously gave of his time and energy to introduce me to different aspects of the local music community. Nihei Masato supported me during my year as a guest researcher, helped me become acquainted with the local academic community, and worked tirelessly to turn v my flawed Japanese into publishable text. Nihei-sensei, Yamaguchi Tōru, and the members of F- ken have also given me important opportunities to talk shop and remain in a critical headspace while separated from US academia. I am also grateful to Nakamura Hiroaki, Shari Berman, and all of the members of the English Lounge who have been so accommodating to me over the past few years. Finally, I would like to thank my parents-in-law Katsura Nobuko and Katsura Hirofumi, as well as my wife naoko, Saki-san, Iku-pon, Dokutā, and Matto-san for taking me into their homes, for answering my incessant questions about Tsugaru vernacular, and for giving me a taste of authentic gotaku [bullshitting] sessions each barbecue season. I want to thank my parents Ruth and Steve Solomon for having the patience to try to understand the path their wayward son has chosen to take, and why he is taking it so far away from home. This dissertation is dedicated to my little Tsugaru family: thank you to naoko and Julia, for giving me a “second furusato,” a truly new sense of home. vi ABSTRACT My purpose in writing The Stink of the Earth: Reorienting Discourses of Tsugaru, Furusato, and Place is to offer a series of new insights into the topic of furusato. Additionally, by directing my focus to the Tsugaru region of Aomori prefecture, I address an under- represented community in Japan studies, the rural countryside, and bring a number of its cultural producers into the purview of English-language scholarship for the first time. Furusato is typically translated as “native place” or “hometown,” and has been treated as an overdetermined symbol of nostalgia for a premodern pastoral ideal, created by the discourse- producing machines of the urban center. This dissertation, however, offers a critical reinterpretation of furusato as “home/origins,” and analyzes it through literary, performance, theoretical, and other artistic discourses of Tsugaru-oriented actors. By turning away from the overbearing presence of Japan-as-nation, I uncover Tsugaru-furusato as a mutable set of practices and values. The dissertation progresses through three major perspectives: musical-aesthetic, avant- garde writing, and the local literary community. The first chapter offers a unique historiography of Tsugaru folksong and Tsugaru-jamisen, connecting processes of production and the appropriation of emerging media technologies. It goes on to read the influential musician Takahashi Chikuzan’s use of olfactive metaphor and “principle” [sujimichi] as a nuanced discourse of a “folk epistemology.” The second chapter takes up the autobiographical works of postwar avant-garde artist Terayama Shūji, focusing on his critical and prose writing. Through them, he promoted and performed an ethical praxis of creative destruction, reinventing the potential meaning of furusato for his generation. The final chapter presents an overview of the Tsugaru literary community, highlighting the intervention of institutions which give form to its vii narrative. The latter part of the chapter uses detailed readings of the written discourse of actors within Tsugaru’s literary networks to argue for a specific place-consciousness which is created through practice. While each chapter analyzes a unique set of texts and perspectives, they all foreground innovative interpretations of furusato related to aesthetics, practice, and place. viii INTRODUCTION “For humans to have a responsible relationship to the world, they must imagine their places in it.