Enfolding Silence: The Transformation of Japanese American Religion and Art under Oppression

Enfolding Silence: The Transformation of Japanese American Religion and Art under Oppression

by Brett J. Esaki
Enfolding Silence: The Transformation of Japanese American Religion and Art under Oppression

Enfolding Silence: The Transformation of Japanese American Religion and Art under Oppression

by Brett J. Esaki

Hardcover

$135.00 
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Overview

This book demonstrates how Japanese Americans have developed traditions of complex silences to survive historic moments of racial and religious oppression and how they continue to adapt these traditions today. Brett Esaki offers four case studies of Japanese American art-gardening, origami, jazz, and monuments-and examines how each artistic practice has responded to a historic moment of oppression. He finds that these artistic silences incorporate and convey obfuscated and hybridized religious ideas from Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Shinto, indigenous religions, and contemporary spirituality.

While silence is often thought of as the binary opposite and absence of sound, Esaki offers a theory of non-binary silence that articulates how multidimensional silences are formed and how they function. He argues that non-binary silences have allowed Japanese Americans to disguise, adapt, and innovate religious resources in order to negotiate racism and oppressive ideologies from both the United States and Japan. Drawing from the fields of religious studies, ethnic studies, theology, anthropology, art, music, history, and psychoanalysis, this book highlights the ways in which silence has been used to communicate the complex emotions of historical survival, religious experience, and artistic inspiration.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780190251420
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Publication date: 06/01/2016
Series: AAR Academy Series
Pages: 280
Product dimensions: 6.20(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Brett J. Esaki is Assistant Professor of American Religions at Georgia State University.

Table of Contents

List of Figures
Acknowledgements

Introduction: "They're Just like White Kids": Genealogy and Theory of Japanese American Non-Binary Silence
Chapter 1: Gardening, the Silence of Space, and the Humanity of Judgment
Chapter 2: Origami, the Silence of Self, and the Spirit of Vulnerability
Chapter 3: Jazz, the Silence of Time, and Modes of Justice
Chapter 4: Monuments, the Silence of Legacy, and Kodomo Tame Ni
Epilogue: "Whiz Kids"?: Racial Shamelessness, the Model Minority, and the Future of Silence

Notes
Bibliography
Appendix: Background Information Sheet and Interview Questionnaire
Index
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