Natsuko Kuwabara: Exploring the World of Knowledge

2024/12/09

April 2004. Having just entered Keio, I was wide-eyed at the syllabus I was given. "What is this? This looks interesting! Do they really study things like this at university?" Even though I had wanted to study Western Art History since before entering, I found myself taking plenty of subjects that seemed to have little to do with my major. Every day of learning things I didn't know was so much fun that by the time I graduated, I had earned 208 credits (apparently there is a credit cap now).

At one point, I realized that both the Western Classics course on Homer and the Sociology of Japanese Anime I was taking shared the theme of "proof of self-existence." At that moment, I felt as if the roots of different pieces of knowledge had connected underground. Filled with the excitement of learning, my steps were light, and the Mita Hill I saw that day was particularly beautiful.

I proceeded to the Major in Aesthetics and Art History, and after that, I researched the theme of "how the final years of the Virgin Mary, which are not described in the Bible, have been depicted in paintings." My subjects covered the entire Mediterranean region and a wide span from the 5th to the 15th centuries. During my studies in Italy, I was trained to thoroughly investigate works as if "extracting the entrails," and the research methods of art history were deeply drummed into me. I was both absorbed in and desperate to master them. Looking back, I suppose I didn't have the leeway to look at anything else.

After returning to Japan, as I had more opportunities to speak with researchers from other fields, I was made aware of aspects of my research subjects that I hadn't seen before. At those times, my days at Keio would suddenly come back to me. Different disciplines actually share the same problems, or by looking at things from different perspectives, forms that were previously unnoticed begin to emerge. I wanted to try finding that within my own research. I felt that delving deep into one's specialization while crossing it with perspectives from other fields would lead to intellectual individuality. With that in mind, I deconstructed the contents of the doctoral dissertation I had struggled to write and decided to re-examine my research from the perspective of disciplines other than art history. My first solo book, "The Final Years of the Virgin Mary: A Genealogy of Iconography in Medieval and Renaissance Italy" (Nagoya University Press, 2023), was the result of that process.

I am grateful that my book received the 6th Faculty of Letters Junzaburo Nishiwaki Academic Award this year. The Mita Hill I visited for the first time in a long while for the award ceremony was just as beautiful as it was that day I saw it as an undergraduate.