Eccentric Spaces, Hidden Histories: Narrative, Ritual, and Royal Authority from The Chronicles of Japan to The Tale of the Heike

by David T. Bialock

Overview

After The Tale of Genji (c. 1000), the greatest work of classical Japanese literature is the historical narrative The Tale of the Heike (13th-14th centuries). In addition to opening up fresh perspectives on the Heike narratives, this study also draws attention to a range of problems centered on the interrelationship between narrative, ritual space, and Japan's changing views of China as they bear on depictions of the emperor's authority, warriors, and marginal population going all the way back to the Nara period. By situating the Heike in this long temporal framework, the author sheds light on a hidden history of royal authority that was entangled in Daoist and yin-yang ideas in the Nara period, practices centered on defilement in the Heian period, and Buddhist doctrines pertaining to original enlightenment in the medieval period, all of which resurface and combine in Heike's narrative world. In introducing for the first time the full range of Heike narrative to students and scholars of Japanese literature, the author argues that we must also reexamine our understanding of the literature, ritual, and culture of the Heian and Nara periods.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780804751582
Publisher:	Stanford University Press
Publication date:	02/01/2007
Series:	Asian Religions and Cultures
Edition description:	1
Pages:	488
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

David T. Bialock is Associate Professor of Japanese Literature at the University of Southern California.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     ix
Abbreviations     xi
A Note to the Reader     xiii
Introduction     1
Part 1
Hidden Texts: The Modern Construction of Yin-Yang and Daoist Studies     17
The Yin and the Yang of Power     33
Recovering the Daoist Text     65
Part 2
Royalizing the Realm and the Ritualization of Violence     111
Peripheries of Power: Toward an Ambulatory History     143
Part 3
China in the Medieval Imaginary     177
Reimagining Late Heian and Early Medieval Space     217
The Apocryphal History of Kiyomori     272
Epilogue     319
Notes     325
Bibliography     403
Glossary of Chinese Characters     435
Index     439

Editorial Reviews

"This important study challenges long-held assumption about pre-modern Japanese culture. It is a work of great scholarship that makes high demands of readers, but well repays the effort"

Monumenta Nipponica - Michael Watson

"The sophisticated application of contemporary critical theory to the study of premodern Japanese literary and historical texts is something of a rarity in English-language scholarship However, David Bialock's Eccentric Spaces, Hidden Histories is one such work: a book of extraordinary breadth and depth Bialock's book is an inspirational study that is likely to exert profound effects upon the fields of premodern Japanese literary and cultural studies for years to come."

Boulder - R. Keller Kimbrough

"Bialock focuses on overlooked details and aspects of the many subjects he treats, and he opens up new perspectives on the Heike and on the long sweep of texts and history he covers."

CHOICE

"Dense, detailed, and deeply conversant with literary theory, Bialock provides excellent overviews of the reception of Chinese religious culture in early Japan (chapters 1-3, 6) as well as the role of Buddhist traditions in shaping medieval Japanese culture (chapters 7-8)."

Religious Studies Review - Jeffrey L. Richey

"Eccentric Places, Hidden Histories is a work of comprehensive erudition, well worth the wait that medievalists have endured since the appearance of Bialock's doctoral dissertation that presaged it . . . Following the multiple threads that he untangles and winds in new patterns will change the way readers configure the whole cloth of premodern Japan."

Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies

"Dense, detailed, and deeply conversant with literary theory, Bialock provides excellent overviews of the reception of Chinese religious culture in early Japan (chapters 1-3, 6) as well as the role of Buddhist traditions in shaping medieval Japanese culture (chapters 7-8)."—Jeffrey L. Richey, Religious Studies Review


"This important study challenges long-held assumption about pre-modern Japanese culture. It is a work of great scholarship that makes high demands of readers, but well repays the effort"—Michael Watson, Monumenta Nipponica


"Bialock focuses on overlooked details and aspects of the many subjects he treats, and he opens up new perspectives on the Heike and on the long sweep of texts and history he covers."—CHOICE


"The sophisticated application of contemporary critical theory to the study of premodern Japanese literary and historical texts is something of a rarity in English-language scholarship However, David Bialock's Eccentric Spaces, Hidden Histories is one such work: a book of extraordinary breadth and depth Bialock's book is an inspirational study that is likely to exert profound effects upon the fields of premodern Japanese literary and cultural studies for years to come."—R. Keller Kimbrough, University of Colorado, Boulder


"Eccentric Places, Hidden Histories is a work of comprehensive erudition, well worth the wait that medievalists have endured since the appearance of Bialock's doctoral dissertation that presaged it . . . Following the multiple threads that he untangles and winds in new patterns will change the way readers configure the whole cloth of premodern Japan."—Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies

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