Author: Michiko Suzuki Publisher: University of Hawaii Press ISBN: 0824896939 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 337
Book Description
Often considered an exotic garment of “traditional Japan,” the kimono is in fact a vibrant part of Japanese modernity, playing an integral role in literature and film throughout the twentieth century. Reading the Kimono in Twentieth-Century Japanese Literature and Film is the first extended study to offer new ways of interpreting textual and visual narratives through “kimono language”—what these garments communicate within their literary, historical, and cultural contexts. Kimonos on the page and screen do much more than create verisimilitude or function as one-dimensional symbols. They go beyond simply indicating the wearer’s age, gender, class, and taste; as eloquent, heterogeneous objects, they speak of wartime and postwar histories and shed light on everything from gender politics to censorship. By reclaiming “kimono language”—once a powerful shared vernacular—Michiko Suzuki accesses inner lives of characters, hidden plot points, intertextual meanings, resistant messages, and social commentary. Reading the Kimono examines modern Japanese literary works and their cinematic adaptations, including Tanizaki Jun’ichirō’s canonical novel, The Makioka Sisters, and its film versions, one screened under the US Occupation and another directed by Ichikawa Kon in 1983. It also investigates Kōda Aya’s Kimono and Flowing, as well as Naruse Mikio’s 1956 film adaptation of the latter. Reading the Kimono additionally advances the study of women writers by discussing texts by Tsuboi Sakae and Miyao Tomiko, authors often overlooked in scholarship despite their award-winning, bestselling stature. Through her analysis of stories and their afterlives, Suzuki offers a fresh view of the kimono as complex “material” to be read. She asks broader questions about the act of interpretation, what it means to explore both texts and textiles as inherently dynamic objects, shaped by context and considered differently over time. Reading the Kimono is at once an engaging history of the modern kimono and its representation, and a significant study of twentieth-century Japanese literature and film.
Author: Julie Valk Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1000391833 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 186
Book Description
Based on twelve months of in-depth ethnographic research in Japan with retailers, customers, wholesalers, writers and craftspeople, Selling the Kimono is a journey behind the scenes of a struggle to adapt to difficult economic conditions and declining demand for the kimono. The kimono is an iconic piece of clothing, instantly recognised as a symbol of traditional Japanese culture. Yet, little is known about the industry that makes and sells the kimono, in particular the crisis this industry is currently facing. Since the 1970s, kimono sales have dropped dramatically, craftspeople are struggling to find apprentices, and retailers have closed up shop. Illuminating recent academic investigations into the lived experience of economic crisis, this volume presents a story of an industry in crisis, and the narratives of hope, creativity and resilience that have emerged in response. The ethnographic depth and theoretical contribution to understanding the effects of economic crisis and the transformation of traditional culture will be of broad interest to students, academics and the general public.
Author: Jan Dees Publisher: ISBN: 9788857200118 Category : Design Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
Showcases and analyzes a private collection of 130 kimonos made for men, women, and children between 1900 and 1940, evaluating the historical and cultural factors that have inspired their designs, in a volume that features three hundred commissioned photographs.
Author: Susan Briscoe Publisher: Kodansha America ISBN: 9781568363653 Category : Crafts & Hobbies Languages : en Pages : 140
Book Description
Modern Japanese quilting blends Eastern and Western techniques to create quilts of extraordinary style and beauty. Using designs borrowed from a rich decorative arts heritage, and often incorporating traditional kimono fabrics, Japanese quilters have developed a distinctive style based on unusual motifs and striking color combinations. With Japanese Quilted Blocks to Mix and Match, any quilter can create exquisite and unique works of patchwork art in the Japanese tradition. The book presents more than 125 different block patterns, each with complete instructions and a color photograph, representing a variety of pattern sources: kamon (family crests), Hakone yosegi (parquetry) and traditional textiles, such as kasuri weave. Each 9-inch block includes a full cutting guide and fabric palette; suggestions for use, either mixing and matching or adapting to an all-over design; and icons indicating techniques and skill level. The blocks on each spread are related in design and technique. In addition to the Block Directory, Japanese Quilted Blocks to Mix and Match features an Inspiration Gallery, showcasing examples of finished quilts from leading quilters. Using these examples, author Susan Briscoe explores such topics as color ideas from traditional Japanese textiles and quilts, motifs, and recommendations for combining fabric patterns and block designs. An extensive section on technique, as well as several pages about the fabrics themselves and a listing of suppliers and organizations make this volume as practical and informative as it is beautiful.
Author: Vee David Publisher: Tuttle Publishing ISBN: 1462910637 Category : Foreign Language Study Languages : en Pages : 1202
Book Description
This massive text is the ultimate authoritative book on learning Japanese Kanji. The Kanji Handbook presents an ingenious and tested method to learn the 1,945 kanji characters taught in all Japanese language schools. Through the use of "KanjiHybrids"--a concept invented by the author--learners of Kanji and taught to link the characters mentally with English words to form one integral and indivisible unit. This innovative mnemonic device has been proven to train the learner to retain each kanji in the memory much better than simple repetition of the kanji alone--as well as enabling users to differentiate similar-looking kanji characters. Specific learning strategies also enable users to progress quickly from the beginner to advanced level kanji, with stroke orders shown clearly for each kanji character. Eight different indexes-including the highly useful Flip-it Index--form the last part of this unique handbook. Contains the complete list of all 1,945 kanji characters taught in Japanese schools. Presents a new KanjiHybrids system linking kanji characters with English words to aid memorization. Innovative learning strategies guide learners at all levels from beginner to advanced.
Author: Meira Chand Publisher: Marshall Cavendish International Asia Pte Ltd ISBN: 9814841323 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 334
Book Description
Marriage at twenty to an older man takes Amy Redmore from the cool green fields of Somerset to Japan, where Reggie is to take up the post of Secretary for the Yokohama United Club. Already she has learned some disturbing things about her new husband. He has a mistress by the name of Annie Luke, and a child from that liaison. Secondly he is an arsenic addict and habitually takes massive doses – more than enough to kill a normal man. But the real trouble begins with their new life on the Bluff, where the British all live in segregated splendour. Reggie is out all day with his work at the Club and at night he is lost to Yokohama’s social whirl and the temptations of the town’s notorious pleasure quarter. Amy, with her freshly awakened sense of independence finds new friends, and, more significantly, enemies – people who when the time comes will brand her publicly as an adulteress and a murderess.
Author: Robert E. Morrell Publisher: State University of New York Press ISBN: 1438413653 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 410
Book Description
Sand and Pebbles presents the first complete English rendering of Shasekishū--the classic, popular Buddhist "Tale Literature" (setsuwa). This collection of instructive, yet often humorous, anecdotes appeared in the late thirteenth century, within decades of the first stirrings of the revolutionary movements of Kamakura Buddhism. Shasekishū's author, Mujū Ichien (1226-1312), lived in a rural temple apart from the centers of political and literary activity, and his stories reflect the customs, attitudes and lifestyles of the commoners. In Sand and Pebbles, complete translations of Book One and other significant narrative parts are supplemented by summaries of the remaining (especially didactic) material and by excerpts from Mujū's later work. Introduced by a historical sketch of the period, this work also contains a biography of Mujū. Illustrations, charts, a chronology, glossary of terms, notes, an extensive bibliography and an index guide the reader into a seldom seen corner of old Japan. Mujū and his writings will interest students of literature as well as scholars of Japanese religion, especially Buddhism. Anthropologists and sociologists will discover details of Kamakura life and thought unrecorded in the official chronicles of the age.
Author: Michiko Suzuki
Author: Michael Craig
Author: Julie Valk
Author: 
Author: Jan Dees
Author: Susan Briscoe
Author: Vee David
Author: Meira Chand
Author: Robert E. Morrell
Author: Ruth Comfort Mitchell