Mita Philosophical Society Lecture: "The Modernity of Language and Kunio Yanagita's Practice of 'Kikimimi' (Listening Ear): The Question of Ethnology and"

2018/1/16

Abstract

This presentation will examine the method and attitude in folklore studies of listening to the of others. It will do so while considering the theories of fieldwork that have been accumulating in and around anthropology for the past quarter-century, and within the context of the trial and error of 'kikimimi' (listening ear) as a linguistic practice in the modernization of the Japanese language—including the unification of the written and spoken language (genbun-itchi)—a period that can be described as Japan's 'crisis of expression.'
From the time he had deep exchanges with naturalist writers in the 1890s and 1900s (the 30s of the Meiji era), Kunio Yanagita consistently struggled with 'literary style.' Particularly in the process of conceptualizing his 'travel studies' from the Taisho period onward, it is believed that the question of what literary style to use to describe what he felt and thought after encountering the lives of others and listening to their was a pressing issue for Yanagita.
This presentation seeks to trace the cradle and historical development of Japanese folklore studies within Yanagita's trial and error during the modernization of the Japanese language.

Lecturer Profile

Born in Tokyo in 1959. Specializes in folklore studies, oral literature, and modern urban life and culture research. He graduated from the Department of English and American Literature, Faculty of Letters, Keio University, and withdrew from the Doctoral Programs in History and Anthropology at the University of Tsukuba Graduate School after completing all required coursework. After serving as a professor at The University of Kitakyushu and a Guest Professor at the National Museum of Japanese History, he is currently an itinerant lecturer (a 'kuroban wataridori'). Major publications include "Takushī / Modan Tōkyō Minzokushi" (Taxi / A Modern Tokyo Ethnography) (Tokyo: Nihon Editor School Shuppanbu, 1999), " to Katei no Kindai" ( and the Modern Family) (Tokyo: Kyūzansha, 2003), and "Minzoku Hyōshō no Genzai: Hakubutsukan-gata Kenkyū Tōgō no Shiza kara" (The Present of Ethnic Representation: From the Perspective of Museum-based Research Integration) (co-edited with Junichi Koike; Tokyo: Iwata Shoin, 2015).