The Ōshū Fujiwara—An interdisciplinary study on the history, culture and medical assessment of the oldest known mummified human remains in Japan (late Heian, 12th century AD)

This study documents a rare case of mummified human remains from Japan, dating to the late Heian period, 12th Century AD. The remains have only been scientifically investigated once in 1950 so far. The results of this investigation were translated, analyzed, and interpreted using methods of the 21st century. The remains have been traditionally identified as the four ruling generations of the Ōshū Fujiwara clan, who built a cultural and economic center in Hiraizumi. Accordingly, this paper will first examine the historical and cultural significance of Hiraizumi and its ruling class before re-evaluating the findings of the 1950 investigation. This study is the first in the Western scientific literature to provide a comprehensive historical, cultural, and medical evaluation of these mummies.

From The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter to Princess Kaguya: Metamorphoses of the Tale in Manga and Beyond

There are currently numerous manga adaptations of Japanese literary classics of the Heian period. Many of them have been created for educational purpose. It is debatable, however, whether they truly serve such a purpose. In this paper, I will discuss the case of Taketori monogatari (The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, beginning of 10th century). Like all present-day adaptations of ancient texts, manga versions of Taketori monogatari differ significantly from its premodern counterparts. In this paper, I will examine the adaption of the theme, representations of the characters Princess Kaguya (Kaguya-hime) and the bamboo cutter, and manners in which Taketori monogatari metamorphosed into Kaguya-hime over time and when this metamorphosis occurred. Comparing manga representations with premodern versions, I will argue that government-sanctioned textbooks that began to be published in the early twentieth century have played some role in the transformation because they share common characteristics with the modern version Kaguya-hime. In addition, I will compare manga versions to Nara-emaki and Nara-ehon (picture scrolls and picture books produced between the late Muromachi and Edo periods). Comparing these premodern sources with modern manga will help us see some of the differences in the ways the tale has been adapted over the centuries and to consider some of the factors that contributed to new interpretations.

Reading the Literary Canon through Manga in the Twenty-First Century

This special section of Japanese Language and Literature, “Heian Literature in Manga,” attempts to offer tools for understanding the multiple functions that manga appropriations of literary texts written over a millennium ago perform in present-day Japan. Focusing on manga adaptations of six Heian-period (794-1185) works, the contributors examine how and why these classical writings have been rewritten for readers in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. They present six international perspectives on the influence manga has had in popularizing Heian classics by exploring modern interpretations as well as which aspects of the ancient texts have been promoted for readers in Japan today.

Beyond “In Spring, the Dawn”: Redeeming The Pillow Book through Manga

This paper examines three manga adaptations of The Pillow Book (Makura no sōshi, early 11th c.) published in the past thirty years to show how popular culture challenges Japanese school education and its approaches to teaching classical literature. It argues that manga rewritings of the Heian-period text aim to increase modern interest in this ancient work and help to rectify misconceptions of it generated by national literature (kokubungaku) scholarship and traditional methods of teaching classical literature in Japan. Prioritizing the content instead of its formal features, these rewritings offer a new approach to the eleventh-century work by presenting the material in an engaging and relevant way that resonates with modern readers.

The history of the regulation and exploitation of women’s speech and writing in Japan

This chapter describes how women’s relationship to Japanese language has been defined, assessed, and exploited within the field of Japanese linguistics. After a brief history of language studies in Japan in the Introduction, the second section analyses the norms for women’s speech in conduct books (etiquette manuals) since the thirteenth century. The third section summarizes the arguments concerning women’s contribution to the development of kana script in the Heian period (794–1185). The fourth section examines the changing values assigned to two speech styles linguists have prominently attributed to women: jogakusei kotoba (‘schoolgirl speech’) of the late nineteenth century and nyōbō kotoba (‘court-women speech’) since the fourteenth century. The last section considers the shifting evaluations assigned to the works by two individual women, the Japanese translation of Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886) by Wakamatsu Shizuko and the codification of Ainu oral narrative by Chiri Yukie. Conclusions outline three major findings of the chapter.