- Convenor:
-
Laura Moretti
(The University of Cambridge)
Send message to Convenor
- Chair:
-
Laura Moretti
(The University of Cambridge)
- Discussant:
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Fumiko Kobayashi
(Hosei University)
- Format:
- Panel
- Section:
- Pre-modern Literature
Short Abstract
This panel explores early modern materials whose printed surface is designed to trick the eye. It argues that “seeing” is a complex cognitive process that entails looking, doubting, thinking, playing, and relooking; a process that transcends humour and succeeds when seeing and reading converge.
Long Abstract
“The way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe.” This insight is offered by John Berger in his incursion on the _Ways of Seeing_ (1972), a watershed work in visual culture that remains influential to date. Engagement with early modern Japanese printed materials complicates any seemingly straightforward relationship between “what we know” and “what we see,” affording new depth to Berger’s statement.
This panel explores how the printed surface could be used to trick the eye, raising expectations about what we see and yet providing cues that eventually lead to a betrayal of those very expectations. The three presentations dissect the cognitive process inherent in this betrayal by engaging with primary sources that are firmly positioned in the Edo-period literary landscape. What kind of knowledge helps forming an initial understanding of what we see? Is there anything in the image that plants the seed of doubt—is what we see really what we think we see? Does the verbal text, which often accompanies an image, play any role in compounding this doubt? What knowledge is mobilized to meaningfully engage with the doubt that has been planted? What affective response is elicited once we realize that what we see is not what we thought we saw?
In tackling these questions our panel delves into the close reading of a wealth of primary sources from early modern Japan. The first presentation focuses on moji-e, investigating how the shapes of human beings are purposefully created to challenge any division between seeing and reading. The second examines images that are constructed as visual puzzles that invite the viewer-cum-reader to engage with multiple playful activities. The third explores books that are designed to look like serious manuals but are not.
Overall, the panel explores how the printed surface can complicate the act of “seeing,” turning it into an involved process of looking, doubting, thinking, (at times) playing, and relooking. We problematize any arbitrary division between visual culture and literature—both approaches are key to make sense of what we see—and question the oft-invoked remark that parody and humour are at play.
| Abstract in Japanese (if needed) |
Accepted papers
Paper short abstract
This paper examines visual tricks in texts rooted in gesaku literature, issued at the turn of the 19th century, to argue that they pose a puzzle solvable only when seeing, reading and playing converge and to reclaim the "aesthetic of the inconsequential" as lying at the heart of these materials.
Paper long abstract
Are you smart enough to see what you are supposed to? This might sound like an odd question. Yet, it is precisely the question that many early modern Japanese texts, normally associated with gesaku literature, ask. We are in the realm of what Sakakibara Satoru calls “visual tricks” (shikaku no torikku). But are we actually dealing with deceptive images that mobilize the sense of sight alone? Or is there more than meets the eye (pun intended!)?
This paper addresses these questions by investigating materials issued at the turn of the nineteenth century. Our journey starts with collections of puzzling shapes (Komon gawa 1790; Kimyō zui 1803; Gekai zue 1811) and concludes with passages from graphic narratives (Shiba zenkō ga chie no hodo 1787; Chikusai rō takara no yamabuki iro 1794; Kaietari niwako meichō zue 1802). The printed surface gifts the reader with images that, upon careful looking, are not quite right. These images are normally surrounded by text, which contribute to heightening the sense of puzzlement. What is going on here? Image and text, in tandem, confront us with a conundrum. Our task, as viewer-cum-reader, is to solve the puzzle. Playing with the gaze is just one activity required for a solution. A wealth of literary knowledge and daily-life experience is activated to untangle the knotty proposition, with cognitive play and linguistic play joining in. In the process the act of seeing, combined with that of reading, morphs into that of playing games. The solution, if and when secured, leads to what psychology views as a eureka moment, different from laughter.
Engagement with these materials allows us to question any straightforward definition of the act of seeing and to reassess early modern Japanese literature beyond humour, blurring the boundaries normally established between seeing, reading, and playing. Ultimately it enables us to reclaim what I wish to call the “aesthetic of the inconsequential” at the heart of much of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century gesaku literature.
Paper short abstract
This paper examines an understudied typology of early modern Japanese literature: the “mock” book. These seem like instructional items (textbooks, travel guides, etc.) but in reality are anything but, contributing to our understanding of how didacticism can be leveraged as a source of enjoyment.
Paper long abstract
It is an age-old adage that one should never judge a book by its cover. However, especially when it comes to instructional texts there is an assumption that the content should match the expectation. Something billed as a scientific journal should contain new research. A history textbook should contain information about the past. A travel guide should be a guide to places one can travel. This was certainly true in early modern Japan, where whole genres of instructional texts not only contained knowledge but laid it out using common visual languages. In general, when a reader approached one of these texts they knew what they would see and read.
So what happens when you undermine that expectation? In eighteenth and nineteenth century Japan a wide variety of authors started to do just that. They released sex manuals that looked like mathematics textbooks, get-rich-quick treatises posing as travel guides, almanacs that didn’t catalogue the stars, rather the actors on the kabuki stage. Many examples were designed to look almost indistinguishable from actual instructional works, from their physical formats to their styles of written language and their page layouts. Thus, the often humorous contents were shrouded in a cloak of seriousness, existing in tension between the familiar and unfamiliar.
Japanese scholars such as Kobayashi Fumiko have classified many of these under the broad term hyōgen mohō keishiki 表現模倣形式, literally “expression-imitating form”. This paper will build upon prior research to interrogate this phenomenon, which I will tentatively translate as “mock” books. Overall, it will apply humour theories to argue that the primary source of pleasure in these works derives from the incongruity inherent in their very natures. They present the reader with a puzzle: is this item instructional or not? And through the process of finding the answer the reader gets hooked, marvelling at the author’s commitment to the ruse. By examining these understudied resources, this paper will advance our understanding of the playful literary scene in early modern Edo, showing how authors leveraged their audiences’ familiarity with didactic texts as a source of cognitive enjoyment.
Paper short abstract
The paper examines how moji-e (pictures made of written characters) defy expectations regarding writing, reading, and deciphering. It explains how the decryption process unfolds, what makes it enjoyable and challenging, and how moji-e can contribute to more general research on reading and seeing.
Paper long abstract
Moji-e is one of the most fascinating examples of the combination of writing and drawing in Japan. During the Edo period, the term referred to drawings of people, animals or objects created using written characters. Deciphering moji-e requires many skills. First, it is necessary to distinguish between writing and drawing, which can sometimes be difficult. Then, the written characters within the drawing must be identified. Several techniques can facilitate this process, such as using thicker strokes for written characters than for drawn lines and repeating the text in a standard form outside the drawing. However, the difficulty varies greatly from one example to another, and some moji-e can be particularly challenging.
This presentation will focus on how certain moji-e defy expectations regarding writing, reading and deciphering. The distinction between writing and drawing is challenged by drawings created using written characters. The usual redundancy between a human being's name and the characters used to draw its silhouette is broken in moji-e that use different characters. Commentaries that offer new interpretations play with the codification of certain moji-e.
We will demonstrate the complexity of moji-e using the canonical example of the silhouette of a small wandering monk created using the characters mairase sōrō. This highly codified moji-e is also characterised by its great versatility. Its meaning changes depending on the characters that compose it, the text placed alongside it and the artist's intentions. Through this example, we will attempt to answer broader questions to understand what makes deception both so enjoyable and challenging. Which elements are relevant in order to identify a moji-e? How does the decryption process unfold? What happens if a moji-e is not identified as such? What does reading mean? Finally, what does seeing mean?