Spirituality and Alternativity in Contemporary Japan PDF Download

Author: Ioannis Gaitanidis
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350262625
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
This book critically analyses the creation and effects of spirituality as both discourse and practice in Japan. It shows how the value of spirituality has been sustained by scholars who have wished for a more civic role for religion; by the publishing industry whose exponential growth in the 1980s fashioned those who later identified as the representatives of this “new spirituality culture”; by “spiritual therapists” who have sought to eke out a livelihood in an increasingly professionalized and regulated therapeutic field; and by the cruel optimism of an increasingly precarious workforce placing its hopes in the imagined alternative that the supirichuaru represents. Ioannis Gaitanidis offers a new transdisciplinary conceptualisation of 'alternativity' that can be applied across and beyond the disciplines of religious studies, media studies, popular culture studies and the anthropology/sociology of medicine.

Author: Ioannis Gaitanidis
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350262633
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
This book critically analyses the creation and effects of spirituality as both discourse and practice in Japan. It shows how the value of spirituality has been sustained by scholars who have wished for a more civic role for religion; by the publishing industry whose exponential growth in the 1980s fashioned those who later identified as the representatives of this “new spirituality culture”; by “spiritual therapists” who have sought to eke out a livelihood in an increasingly professionalized and regulated therapeutic field; and by the cruel optimism of an increasingly precarious workforce placing its hopes in the imagined alternative that the supirichuaru represents. Ioannis Gaitanidis offers a new transdisciplinary conceptualisation of 'alternativity' that can be applied across and beyond the disciplines of religious studies, media studies, popular culture studies and the anthropology/sociology of medicine.

Author: Fabio Rambelli
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350097101
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
This book draws attention to a striking aspect of contemporary Japanese culture: the prevalence of discussions and representations of “spirits” (tama or tamashii). Ancestor cults have played a central role in Japanese culture and religion for many centuries; in recent decades, however, other phenomena have expanded and diversified the realm of Japanese animism. For example, many manga, anime, TV shows, literature, and art works deal with spirits, ghosts, or with an invisible dimension of reality. International contributors ask to what extent these are cultural forms created by the media for consumption, rather than manifestations of “traditional” ancestral spirituality in their adaptations to contemporary society. Spirits and Animism in Contemporary Japan considers the modes of representations and the possible cultural meanings of spirits, as well as the metaphysical implications of contemporary Japanese ideas about spirits. The chapters offer analyses of specific cases of “animistic attitudes” in which the presence of spirits and spiritual forces is alleged, and attempt to trace cultural genealogies of those attitudes. In particular, they present various modes of representation of spirits (in contemporary art, architecture, visual culture, cinema, literature, diffuse spirituality) while at the same time addressing their underlying intellectual and religious assumptions.

Author: John K. Nelson
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 9780824822590
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
Enduring Identities is an attempt to understand the continuing relevance of Shinto to the cultural identity of contemporary Japanese. The enduring significance of this ancient yet innovative religion is evidenced each year by the millions of Japanese who visit its shrines. They might come merely seeking a park-like setting or to make a request of the shrine's deities, asking for a marriage partner, a baby, or success at school or work; or they might come to give thanks for benefits received through the intercession of deities or to legitimate and sacralize civic and political activities. Through an investigation of one of Japan's most important and venerated Shinto shrines, Kamo Wake Ikazuchi Jinja (more commonly Kamigamo Jinja), the book addresses what appears through Western and some Asian eyes to be an exotic and incongruous blend of superstition and reason as well as a photogenic juxtaposition of present and past. Combining theoretical sophistication with extensive fieldwork and a deep knowledge of Japan, John Nelson documents and interprets the ancient Kyoto shrine's yearly cycle of rituals and festivals, its sanctified landscapes, and the people who make it viable. At local and regional levels, Kamigamo Shrine's ritual traditions (such as the famous Hollyhock Festival) and the strategies for their perpetuation and implementation provide points of departure for issues that anthropologists, historians, and scholars of religion will recognize as central to their disciplines. These include the formation of social memory, the role of individual agency within institutional politics, religious practice and performance, the shaping of sacred space and place, ethnic versus cultural identity, and the politics of historical representation and cultural nationalism. Nelson links these themes through a detailed ethnography about a significant place and institution, which until now has been largely closed to both Japanese and foreign scholars. In contrast to conventional notions of ideology and institutions, he shows how a religious tradition's lack of centralized dogma, charismatic leaders, and sacred texts promotes rather than hinders a broad-based public participation with a variety of institutional agendas, most of which have very little to do with belief. He concludes that it is this structural flexibility, coupled with ample economic, human, and cultural resources, that nurtures a reworking of multiple identities--all of which resonate with the past, fully engage the present, and, with care, will endure well into the future.

Author: Katharine Buljan
Publisher: Equinox Publishing (UK)
ISBN: 9781781791097
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Barely a century has passed since anime (Japanese animation) was first screened to a Western audience. Over time the number of anime genres and generic hybrids have significantly grown. These have been influenced and inspired by various historical and cultural phenomena, one of which - Japanese native religion and spirituality - this book argues is important and dominant. There have always been anime lovers in the West, but today that number is growing exponentially. This is intriguing as many Japanese anime directors and studios initially created works that were not aimed at a Western audience at all. The mutual imbrication of the profane and sacred worlds in anime, along with the profound reciprocal relationship between 'Eastern' (Japanese) and 'Western' (chiefly American) culture in the development of the anime artistic form, form the twin narrative arcs of the book. One of the most significant contributions of this book is the analysis of the employment of spiritual and religious motifs by directors. The reception of this content by fans is also examined. The appeal of anime to aficionados is, broadly speaking, the appeal of the spiritual in a post-religious world, in which personal identity and meaning in life may be crafted from popular cultural texts which offer an immersive and enchanting experience that, for many in the modern world, is more thrilling and authentic than 'real life'. In the past, religions posited that after human existence on earth had ceased, the individual soul would be reincarnated again, or perhaps reside in heaven. In the early twenty-first century, spiritual seekers still desire a life beyond that of everyday reality, and just as passionately believe in the existence of other worlds and the afterlife. However, the other worlds are the fantasy landscapes and outer space settings of anime (and other popular cultural forms), and the afterlife the digital circuitry and electronic impulses of the Internet. These important new understandings of religion and the spiritual underpin anime's status as a major site of new religious and spiritual inspiration in the West, and indeed, the world.

Author: Dorothea Lüddeckens
Publisher: transcript Verlag
ISBN: 3839445825
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
In modern societies the functional differentiation of medicine and religion is the predominant paradigm. Contemporary therapeutic practices and concepts in healing systems, such as Transpersonal Psychology, Ayurveda, as well as Buddhist and Anthroposophic medicine, however, are shaped by medical as well as religious or spiritual elements. This book investigates configurations of the entanglement between medicine, religion, and spirituality in Europe, Asia, North America, and Africa. How do political and legal conditions affect these healing systems? How do they relate to religious and scientific discourses? How do therapeutic practitioners position themselves between medicine and religion, and what is their appeal for patients?

Author: Janine Anderson Sawada
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824890434
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
Even a fleeting glimpse of Mount Fuji’s snow-capped peak emerging from the clouds in the distance evokes the reverence it has commanded in Japan from ancient times. Long considered sacred, during the medieval era the mountain evolved from a venue for solitary ascetics into a well-regulated pilgrimage site. With the onset of the Tokugawa period, the nature of devotion to Mount Fuji underwent a dramatic change. Working people from nearby Edo (now Tokyo) began climbing the mountain in increasing numbers and worshipping its deity on their own terms, leading to a widespread network of devotional associations known as Fujikō. In Faith in Mount Fuji Janine Sawada asserts that the rise of the Fuji movement epitomizes a broad transformation in popular religion that took place in early modern Japan. Drawing on existing practices and values, artisans and merchants generated new forms of religious life outside the confines of the sectarian establishment. Sawada highlights the importance of independent thinking in these grassroots phenomena, making a compelling case that the new Fuji devotees carved out enclaves for subtle opposition to the status quo within the restrictive parameters of the Tokugawa order. The founding members effectively reinterpreted materials such as pilgrimage maps, talismans, and prayer formulae, laying the groundwork for the articulation of a set of remarkable teachings by Jikigyō Miroku (1671–1733), an oil peddler who became one of the group’s leading ascetic practitioners. His writings fostered a vision of Mount Fuji as a compassionate parental deity who mandated a new world of economic justice and fairness in social and gender relations. The book concludes with a thought-provoking assessment of Jikigyō’s suicide on the mountain as an act of commitment to world salvation that drew on established ascetic practice even as it conveyed political dissent. Faith in Mount Fuji is a pioneering work that contains a wealth of in-depth analysis and original interpretation. It will open up new avenues of discussion among students of Japanese religions and intellectual history, and supply rich food for thought to readers interested in global perspectives on issues of religion and society, ritual culture, new religions, and asceticism.

Author: Stefan Köck
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350181080
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
This book sheds new light on the relationship between religion and state in early modern Japan, and demonstrates the growing awareness of Shinto in both the political and the intellectual elite of Tokugawa Japan, even though Buddhism remained the privileged means of stately religious control. The first part analyses how the Tokugawa government aimed to control the populace via Buddhism and at the same time submitted Buddhism to the sacralization of the Tokugawa dynasty. The second part focuses on the religious protests throughout the entire period, with chapters on the suppression of Christians, heterodox Buddhist sects, and unwanted folk practitioners. The third part tackles the question of why early Tokugawa Confucianism was particularly interested in “Shinto” as an alternative to Buddhism and what “Shinto” actually meant from a Confucian stance. The final part of the book explores attempts to curtail the institutional power of Buddhism by reforming Shinto shrines, an important step in the so called “Shintoization of shrines” including the development of a self-contained Shinto clergy.

Author: Aike P. Rots
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474289959
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Shinto, Nature and Ideology in Contemporary Japan is the first systematic study of Shinto's environmental turn. The book traces the development in recent decades of the idea of Shinto as an 'ancient nature religion,' and a resource for overcoming environmental problems. The volume shows how these ideas gradually achieved popularity among scientists, priests, Shinto-related new religious movements and, eventually, the conservative shrine establishment. Aike P. Rots argues that central to this development is the notion of chinju no mori: the sacred groves surrounding many Shinto shrines. Although initially used to refer to remaining areas of primary or secondary forest, today the term has come to be extended to any sort of shrine land, signifying not only historical and ecological continuity but also abstract values such as community spirit, patriotism and traditional culture. The book shows how Shinto's environmental turn has also provided legitimacy internationally: influenced by the global discourse on religion and ecology, in recent years the Shinto establishment has actively engaged with international organizations devoted to the conservation of sacred sites. Shinto sacred forests thus carry significance locally as well as nationally and internationally, and figure prominently in attempts to reposition Shinto in the centre of public space.

Author: Erica Baffelli
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350043745
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
Providing an overview of current cutting-edge research in the field of Japanese religions, this Handbook is the most up-to-date guide to contemporary scholarship in the field. As well as charting innovative research taking place, this book also points to new directions for future research, covering both the modern and pre-modern periods. Edited by Erica Baffelli, Andrea Castiglioni, and Fabio Rambelli, The Bloomsbury Handbook of Japanese Religions includes essays by international scholars from the USA, Europe, Japan, and New Zealand. Topics and themes include gender, politics, the arts, economy, media, globalization, and colonialism. The Bloomsbury Handbook of Japanese Religions is an essential reference point for upper-level students and scholars of Japanese religions as well as Japanese Studies more broadly.