Kyoto Lectures 2018 June

Dead Goddesses and Living Narratives: Variant Accounts in Early Japanese Mythology

Speaker: David Lurie

Monday, June 4th, 18:00h

＠EFEO Kyoto (29 Kitashirakawa bettô-chô, Sakyô-ku, Kyoto 606-8276)


Most students of Japanese culture or comparative mythology are familiar
with tales of the progenitor deities Izanagi and Izanami, or of
Susano-o, rebellious scion of the next divine generation. But fewer
people are aware that such myths exist in radically different versions
with challenging contradictions. Through close readings of two key
narratives—Izanami's death and afterlife, and Susano-o's murder of a
cereal goddess—this lecture places the sources of ancient Japanese
mythology in historical context and considers how we might make sense of
their variant accounts.


David Lurie is Associate Professor of Japanese History and Literature in
the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia
University. His first book, Realms of Literacy: Early Japan and the
History of Writing (Harvard University Asia Center, 2011), received the
Lionel Trilling Award in 2012. With Haruo Shirane and Tomi Suzuki, he
was co-editor of the Cambridge History of Japanese Literature (2015), to
which he contributed chapters on myths, histories, gazetteers, and
early literature in general. He is currently preparing a scholarly
monograph entitled The Emperor’s Dreams: Reading Japanese Mythology.


École Francaise d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO)
Scuola Italiana di Studi sull'Asia Orientale (ISEAS)
Co-hosted by Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University
Language: English

EFEOTEL. 075-701-0882
Fax. 075-701-0883
Email:
efeo.kyoto@gmail.com

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