- Convenors:
-
Lukas Bruna
(Jissen Women's University)
Martin Tirala (Charles University)
Jan Sýkora (Charles University)
Send message to Convenors
- Discussant:
-
Igor Cima
(Hosei University)
- Format:
- Panel
- Section:
- Interdisciplinary Section: Environmental Humanities
Short Abstract
The goal of this panel is to offer a literature-centered perspective on the role of mountains in Japanese cultural imagination. The papers examine representations of mountains in different periods, focusing on shifts in perception from the sacred to the profane, from idealization to commodification.
Long Abstract
Mountains in Japan have long been present in everyday life and cultural imagination, where their changing meanings have been articulated and reshaped through literary representation.
This paper addresses early literary representations that establish mountains as a topos of transcendence, fear, and reverence, forming a foundation for later literary developments. It examines the literary construction of Mount Fuji across premodern Japanese texts, with particular focus on Taketori monogatari (The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter). In this work, Mount Fuji functions not merely as a geographical landmark but as a liminal literary space connecting the earthly and celestial realms, where sacred cosmology, imperial authority, and human mortality intersect. Through this analysis, the paper traces Fuji’s transformation from a site of transcendence into a narrative and symbolic motif.
Second paper examines the significance of the mountain as a literary motif in modern Japanese literature against the backdrop of rapid social and cultural transformation in the late 19th and early 20th century. By comparing two representative works of modern Japanese literature (namely Kitamura Tōkoku’s The Mountain of Hōrai and Shimazaki Tōson’s The Sketches of the Chikumagawa), and by attending to both Japanese and foreign literary influences, this paper aims to elucidate the multiple modes through which the mountain functions within the cultural and intellectual landscape of modernizing Japan.
The third and last paper shed light on how mountains traditionally perceived as a sacred space were secularized and commodified during Taisho and early Showa periods, and how the mountain guidebooks as a specific literary subgenre fostered the exploitation of mountain regions in postwar Japan. The paper does not intend to analyze the whole process of conceptualization of mountains in modern Japanese society, rather than that it focuses on the specific literary tool (i.e. mountain guidebooks), that made mountains accessible to the public and accelerated the process of commodification of mountains particularly in post-war Japan.
| Abstract in Japanese (if needed) |
Accepted papers
Paper short abstract
This paper explores the mountain as a motif in modern Japanese literature amid rapid modernization. Focusing on works by Kitamura Tōkoku and Shimazaki Tōson, it traces shifts from romantic idealization to lived experience, revealing how mountains offered alternatives to urban modernity.
Paper long abstract
This paper examines the significance of the mountain as a literary motif in modern Japanese literature against the backdrop of rapid social and cultural transformation in the late 19th and early 20th century. Industrialization and modernization fostered an urban-centered culture, with Tokyo emerging as a political, economic, and educational hub. While the city initially embodied opportunity and progress—encapsulated in the ideal of risshin shusse (social advancement)—it soon came to be associated with alienation and emotional disillusionment, particularly among young intellectuals. In this context, the mountain, a recurring motif in Japanese literature with diverse forms and meanings, re-emerged with renewed symbolic force.
Situating the discussion within this cultural framework, the paper analyzes the mountain as a literary topos in the works of Kitamura Tōkoku and Shimazaki Tōson. Tōkoku, a leading figure of early Japanese Romanticism, employs the mountain symbolically in his dramatic poem The Mountain of Hōrai (1891), weaving together traditional mythology and Romantic ideals. In his work, the mountain represents individual aspiration and longing for an ideal, set in contrast to the constraints imposed by modern society.
While Tōkoku’s early death prevented the further development of this symbolism, his close associate Tōson—who shared many of his intellectual concerns—later underwent a significant transformation from Romantic poet to Naturalist novelist. Significantly, the mountain plays a central role in works from the early stages of this transition, most notably The Sketches of the Chikumagawa (1911). Drawing on his own experiences of life in mountainous regions, Tōson depicts the mountain not as an abstract ideal but as an alternative reality grounded in lived experience.
By comparing these two representative works of modern Japanese literature, and by attending to both Japanese and foreign literary influences, this paper aims to elucidate the multiple modes through which the mountain functions within the cultural and intellectual landscape of modernizing Japan.
Paper short abstract
Focusing on Taketori monogatari, this paper examines Mount Fuji as a liminal literary space where sacred cosmology, imperial authority, and human mortality intersect, shaping its symbolic role in premodern texts.
Paper long abstract
Mountains have occupied a central place in Japanese literary imagination since the earliest extant texts, most notably Kojiki and the poetry anthology Man’yōshū, where they appear as sacred spaces mediating between the human and the divine. Within early literature, mountains are frequently associated with ritual, authority, and cosmological order, as exemplified by imperial practices such as kunimi, the symbolic surveying of the land. These early representations establish mountains as topos of transcendence, fear, and reverence, forming a foundation for later literary developments.
This paper examines the literary construction of Mount Fuji across premodern Japanese texts, with particular focus on Taketori monogatari (The Tale of Bamboo Cutter). In this work, Mount Fuji functions not merely as a geographical landmark but as a liminal space that connects the earthly realm with the celestial world. The episode of the burning elixir of immortality situates Mount Fuji at the intersection of imperial power, unattainable desire, and the boundary between mortality and immortality. Fuji thus becomes a site where political authority and cosmic order are symbolically questioned, as the emperor’s inability to transcend human limitations is inscribed into the landscape itself.
By situating Taketori monogatari alongside other premodern literary representations, this paper traces a gradual shift in the literary perception of Mount Fuji—from a predominantly sacral and mythological presence toward a more secular, narrative, and aestheticized motif. The analysis highlights how changes in genre, narrative perspective, and literary convention contributed to the evolving symbolic functions of Mount Fuji within Japanese literature.
Paper short abstract
The goal of the paper is to shed light on how mountains traditionally perceived as a sacred space were secularized and commodified during Taishō and early Shōwa periods, and how the mountain guidebooks as a specific literary subgenre fostered the exploitation of mountain regions in postwar Japan.
Paper long abstract
In Japan, mountains have filled the space between heaven and earth since ancient times, connecting the profane basis of human life with its sacred dimension, and therefore became a pilgrimage destination for emperors, monks, poets and even ordinary people. Although each of them was driven by different motivations, they all focused their attention on mountains as places of religions practice and spiritual purification.
Modernization and industrialization of the country in late 19th century, closely related to the growing tendency towards mass consumption brought the urgent need to mobilize all aspects of social life and to incorporate them into the officially approved and generally championed policy of catching-up and empire building. However, since mountains per se were not seen as a potential source of economic growth and prosperity, and were largely neglected by both policymakers and private business in early stage of modernization, it was not until the Taishō and early Shōwa periods that mountains landscape and indigenous mountain traditions became the target of mass consumption and one of the embedded aspects of modern Japanese society.
The paper does not intend to analyze the whole process of conceptualization of mountains in modern Japanese society, rather than that it focuses on the specific literary tool (i.e. mountain guidebooks), that made mountains accessible to the public and accelerated the process of commodification of mountains particularly in postwar Japan.