Author: Robin D. Gill
Publisher: Paraverse Press
ISBN: 0974261815
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 740
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Book Description
In 1585, Luis Frois, a 53 year old Jesuit who spent all of his adult life in Japan listed 611(!) ways Europeans and Japanese were contrary (completely opposite) to one another. Robin D. Gill, a 53 year old writer who spent most of his adulthood in Japan, translates these topsy-turvy claims - we sniff the top of our melons to see if they are ripe / they sniff the bottom of theirs (10% of the book), examines their validity (20% of the book), and plays with them (70% of the book). Readers with the intellectual horsepower to enjoy ideas will be grateful for pages discussing things like the significance of black and white clothing or large eyes vs. small ones, while others with a ken to collect quirky facts will be delighted to find, say, that the women in Kyoto were known to urinate standing up, or Japanese horses had their stale gathered by long-handled ladles, etc., and serious students of history and comparative culture will gain a better understanding of the nature of radical difference (exotic, by definition) and its relationship with the farsighted policy of accommodation pioneered by Valignano in the Far East.
Author: Luis Frois SJ
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317917804
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 363
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Book Description
In 1585, at the height of Jesuit missionary activity in Japan, which was begun by Francis Xavier in 1549, Luis Frois, a long-time missionary in Japan, drafted the earliest systematic comparison of Western and Japanese cultures. This book constitutes the first critical English-language edition of the 1585 work, the original of which was discovered in the Royal Academy of History in Madrid after the Second World War. The book provides a translation of the text, which is not a continuous narrative, but rather more than 600 distichs or brief couplets on subjects such as gender, child rearing, religion, medicine, eating, horses, writing, ships and seafaring, architecture, and music and drama. In addition, the book includes a substantive introduction and other editorial material to explain the background and also to make comparisons with present-day Japanese life. Overall, the book represents an important primary source for understanding a particularly challenging period of history and its connection to contemporary Europe and Japan.
Author: Robin D. Gill
Publisher: Paraverse Press
ISBN: 0974261890
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 469
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Book Description
In this book, the first of a series, Robin D. Gill, author of the highly acclaimed Rise, Ye Sea Slugs! and Cherry Blossom Epiphany, the largest single-theme anthologies of poetry ever published, explores the traditional Japanese New Year through 2,000 translated haiku (mostly 17-20c). "The New Year," R.H. Blyth once wrote, "is a season by itself." That was nowhere so plain as in the world of haiku, where saijiki, large collections called of ku illustrating hundreds, if not thousands of briefly explained seasonal themes, generally comprised five volumes, one for each season. Yet, the great doyen of haiku gave this fifth season, considered the first season when it came at the head of the Spring rather than in mid-winter, only a tenth of the pages he gave to each of the other four seasons (20 vs. 200). Was Blyth, Zen enthusiast, not enamored with ritual? Or, was he loath to translate the New Year with its many cultural idiosyncrasies (most common to the Sinosphere but not to the West), because he did not want to have to explain the haiku? It is hard to say, but, with these poems for the re-creation of the world, Robin D. Gill, aka "keigu" (respect foolishness, or respect-fool), rushes in where even Blyth feared to tread to give this supernatural or cosmological season - one that combines aspects of the Solstice, Christmas, New Year's, Easter, July 4th and the Once Upon a Time of Fairy Tales - the attention it deserves. With G.K. Chesterton's words, evoking the mind of the haiku poets of old, the author-publisher leaves further description of the content to his reader-reviewers. "The man standing in his own kitchen-garden with the fairyland opening at the gate, is the man with large ideas. His mind creates distance; the motor-car stupidly destroys it." (G.K. Chesterton: Heretics 1905)
Author: Robin D. Gill
Publisher: Paraverse Press
ISBN: 0974261866
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 738
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Book Description
Cherry Blossom Epiphany - the poetry and philosophy of a flowering tree - a selection, translation and lengthy explication of 3000 haiku, waka, senryû and kyôka about a major theme from I.P.O.O.H. (In Praise Of Olde Haiku)by robin d. gill 1. Haiku -Translation from Japanese to English 2. Japanese poetry - 8c-20c - waka, haiku and senryû 3. Natural History - flowering cherries 4. Japan - Culture - Edo Era 5. Nonfiction - Literature 6. Translation - applied 7. You tell me! If the solemn yet happy New Year's is the most important celebration of Japanese (Yamato) ethnic culture, and the quiet aesthetic practice of Moon-viewing in the fall the most elegant expression of Pan-Asian Buddhism=religion, the subject of this book, Blossom-viewing - which generally means sitting down together in vast crowds to drink, dance, sing and otherwise enjoy the flowering cherry in full-bloom - is less a rite than a riot (a word originally meaning an 'uproar'). The major carnival of the year, it is unusual for being held on a date that is not determined by astronomy, astrology or the accidents of history as most such events are in literate cultures. It takes place whenever the cherry trees are good and ready. Enjoyed in the flesh, the blossom-viewing, or hanami, is also of the mind, so much so, in fact, that poetry is often credited with the spread of the practice over the centuries from the Imperial courts to the maids of Edo. Nobles enjoyed link-verse contests presided over by famous poet-judges. Hermits hung poems feting this flower of flowers (to say the generic "flower" = hana in Japanese connotes "cherry!") on strips of paper from the branches of lone trees where only the wind would read them. In the Occident, too, flowers embody beauty and serve as reminders of mortality, but there is no flower that, like the cherry blossom, stands for all flowers. Even the rose, by any name, cannot compare with the sakura in depth and breadth of poetic trope or viewing practice. In Cherry Blossom Epiphany, Robin D. Gill hopes to help readers experience, metaphysically, some of this alternative world. Haiku is a hyper-short (17-syllabet or 7-beat) Japanese poem directly or indirectly touching upon seasonal phenomena, natural or cultural. Literally millions of these ku have been written, some, perhaps, many times, about the flowering cherry (sakura), and the human activity associated with it, blossom-viewing (hanami). As the most popular theme in traditional haiku (haikai), cherry-blossom ku tend to be overlooked by modern critics more interested in creativity expressed with fresh subjects; but this embarrassment of riches has much to offer the poet who is pushed to come up with something, anything, different from the rest and allows the editor to select from what is, for all practical purposes, an infinite number of ku. Literary critics, take note: Like Rise, Ye Sea Slugs! (2003) and Fly-ku! (2004), this book not only explores new ways to anthologize poetry but demonstrates the practice of multiple readings (an average of two per ku) as part of a composite translation turned into an object of art by innovative clustering. Book-collectors might further note that while Cherry Blossom Epiphany may not be hardback, it takes advantage of the many symbols included with Japanese font to introduce design ornamentation (the circle within the circle, the reverse (Buddhist) swastika, etc.) hitherto not found in English language print. It is a one-of-a-kind work of design by the author.
Author: Robin D. Gill
Publisher: Paraverse Press
ISBN: 0974261882
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 505
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Book Description
17-syllabet Japanese poems about human foibles, sans season (i.e., not haiku), were introduced a half-century ago by RH Blyth in two books, "Edo Satirical Verse Anthologies" and "Japanese Life and Character in Senryu." Blyth regretted having to introduce not the best senryu, but only the best that were clean enough to pass the censors. In this anthology, compiled, translated and essayed by Robin D. Gill, like Blyth, a renowned translator of thousands of haiku, we find 1,300 of the senryu (and zappai) that would once have been dangerous to publish. The book is not just an anthology of dirty poems such as Legman's classic "Limericks" or Burford's delightful "Bawdy Verse," but probing essays of thirty themes representative of the eros - both real and imaginary - of Edo, at the time, the world's largest city. Japanese themselves use senryu for historical documentation of social attitudes and cultural practices; thousands of senryu (and the related zappai), including many poems we might consider obscene, serve as examples in the Japanese equivalent of the OED (nipponkokugodaijiten). The specialized argot, obscure allusions and ellipsis that make reading dirty senryu a delightful riddle for one who knows just enough to be challenged yet not defeated, make them impenetrable to outsiders, so this educational yet entertaining resource has not been accessible to most students of Japanese (and the limited translations prove that even professors have difficulty with it). This book tries to accomplish the impossible: it includes all the information - original poems, pronunciation, explanation, glossary - needed to help specialists improve their senryu reading skills, while refraining from full citations to leave plenty of room for the curious monolingual to skip about the eclectic goodies. [Published simultaneously with two titles as an experiment.]
Author: Rotem Kowner
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773596844
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 707
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Book Description
When Europeans first landed in Japan they encountered people they perceived as white-skinned and highly civilized, but these impressions did not endure. Gradually the Europeans' positive impressions faded away and Japanese were seen as yellow-skinned and relatively inferior. Accounting for this dramatic transformation, From White to Yellow is a groundbreaking study of the evolution of European interpretations of the Japanese and the emergence of discourses about race in early modern Europe. Transcending the conventional focus on Africans and Jews within the rise of modern racism, Rotem Kowner demonstrates that the invention of race did not emerge in a vacuum in eighteenth-century Europe, but rather was a direct product of earlier discourses of the "Other." This compelling study indicates that the racial discourse on the Japanese, alongside the Chinese, played a major role in the rise of the modern concept of race. While challenging Europe's self-possession and sense of centrality, the discourse delayed the eventual consolidation of a hierarchical worldview in which Europeans stood immutably at the apex. Drawing from a vast array of primary sources, From White to Yellow traces the racial roots of the modern clash between Japan and the West.
Author: Robin D. Gill
Publisher: Paraverse Press
ISBN: 0984092307
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 301
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Book Description
Even readers with no particular interest in Japan - if such odd souls exist - may expect unexpected pleasure from this book if English metaphysical poetry, grooks, hyperlogical nonsense verse, outrageous epigrams, the (im)possibilities and process of translation between exotic tongues, the reason of puns and rhyme, outlandish metaphor, extreme hyperbole and whatnot tickle their fancy. Read together with The Woman Without a Hole, also by Robin D. Gill, the hitherto overlooked ulterior side of art poetry in Japan may now be thoroughly explored by monolinguals, though bilinguals and students of Japanese will be happy to know all the original Japanese is included. This Reader is a selection from "Mad in Translation - a thousand years of kyoka, comic Japanese poetry in the classic waka mode," a 2000-poem, 200-chapter, 740-page monster of a book. It offers a 300-page double distillation high-proof sample of the poetry and prose, with improved translations, re-considered opinions and additional snake-legs (explanation some scholars may not need). The scattershot of two-page chapters and notes have been compounded into a score of cannonball-sized thematic chapters with just enough weight to bowl over most specialists yet, hopefully, not bore the amateur and sink a potentially broad-beamed readership. (More information may be found at the Paraverse Press website or Google Books)"
Author: Robin D. Gill
Publisher: Paraverse Press
ISBN: 0974261874
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 742
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Book Description
Even readers with no particular interest in Japan - if such odd souls exist - may expect unexpected pleasure from this book if English metaphysical poetry, grooks, hyperlogical nonsense verse, outrageous epigrams, the (im)possibilities and process of translation between exotic tongues, the reason of puns and rhyme, outlandish metaphor, extreme hyperbole and whatnot tickle their fancy. Read together with The Woman Without a Hole, also by Robin D. Gill, the hitherto overlooked ulterior side of art poetry in Japan may now be thoroughly explored by monolinguals, though bilinguals and students of Japanese will be happy to know all the original Japanese is included.--amazon.com.
Author: John Dougill
Publisher: SPCK
ISBN: 0281075530
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 253
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Book Description
In Search of Japan's Hidden Christians is a remarkable story of suppression, secrecy and survival in the face of human cruelty and God’s apparent silence. Part history, part travelogue, it explores and seeks to explain a clash of civilizations—of East and West—that resonates to this day. For seven generations, Japan’s ‘Hidden Christians’ preserved a faith that was forbidden on pain of death. Just as remarkably, descendants of the Hidden Christians continue to practise their beliefs today, refusing to rejoin the Catholic Church. Why? And what is it about Japanese culture that makes it so resistant to Western Christianity?
Author: Cindy I-Fen Cheng
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131781391X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 767
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Book Description
The Routledge Handbook of Asian American Studies brings together leading scholars and scholarship to capture the state of the field of Asian American Studies, as a generation of researchers have expanded the field with new paradigms and methodological tools. Inviting readers to consider new understandings of the historical work done in the past decades and the place of Asian Americans in a larger global context, this ground-breaking volume illuminates how research in the field of Asian American Studies has progressed. Previous work in the field has focused on establishing a place for Asian Americans within American history. This volume engages more contemporary research, which draws on new archives, art, literature, film, and music, to examine how Asian Americans are redefining their national identities, and to show how race interacts with gender, sexuality, class, and the built environment, to reveal the diversity of the United States. Organized into five parts, and addressing a multitude of interdisciplinary areas of interest to Asian American scholars, it covers: • a reframing of key themes such as transnationality, postcolonialism, and critical race theory • U.S. imperialism and its impact on Asian Americans • war and displacement • the garment industry • Asian Americans and sports • race and the built environment • social change and political participation • and many more themes. Exploring people, practice, politics, and places, this cutting-edge volume brings together the best themes current in Asian American Studies today, and is a vital reference for all researchers in the field.
