Table of Contents
- RESOURCE>
DDB/CJKV-E update report, July 2018
- QUERY> "Buddhist
Philosophy Worldwide," seeking contributors from under-represented
regions
- NEW BOOK>
Goodwin and Piggott, Land, Power, and the Sacred: The Estate System in
Medieval Japan
RESOURCE>
DDB/CJKV-E update report, July 2018
by A. Charles Muller
Dear Colleagues,I've uploaded the list of new DDB and CJKV-E entries for July 2018. We have 218 new entries for the DDB (Total: 71,153) and 224 for the CJKV-E (Total: 58,198)
If you have any comments on this month's entries, please do let me know. This month's report file is at: http://www.buddhism-dict.net/ddb/monthlies/ddbcjkveMonthly2018-07.html
Regards,
Chuck
QUERY>
"Buddhist Philosophy Worldwide," seeking contributors from
under-represented regions
by Rafal Stepien
Dear Friends and Colleagues,I am editing a volume on "Buddhist Philosophy Worldwide" and have found contributors from the major centres where scholarship on Buddhist philosophy is carried out in Asia, Europe, and North America. However, I am still seeking contributors from under-represented regions. As such, please let me know (via email: rafal.stepien@philosophy.ox.ac.uk) if you work on Buddhist philosophy and are based anywhere in Africa, South America, or the Middle East outside of Israel, or know anyone who works on Buddhist philosophy and is based in any of these locations.
Many thanks,
Rafal K Stepien
Berggruen Research Fellow in Indian Philosophy, Wolfson College, University of Oxford
Full member, Faculty of Philosophy
Fellow, Berggruen Philosophy and Culture Center
NEW
BOOK> Goodwin and Piggott, Land, Power, and the Sacred: The Estate System in
Medieval Japan
by Janet Goodwin
I am delighted to announce the publication
of Land, Power, and the Sacred: The Estate System in Medieval Japan,
edited by Janet R. Goodwin and Joan R. Piggott, University of Hawai’i Press,
2018 (https://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/land-power-and-the-sacred-the-estate-system-in-medieval-japan/).
Landed estates known as shōen
played a central role in the society and economy of late classical and medieval
Japan. Estates produced much of the material wealth that supported all
levels of society, from the aristocratic court in the capital of Kyoto to the
farmers who worked the land. At various times during the tenth through
sixteenth centuries, estates were locations of de facto government, homes to
communal structures, nodes along trade networks, sites of developing
agricultural technology, and centers of religious practice and ritual. By the
twelfth century at the very latest, we can talk about an estate “system” that
permeated all institutions and social classes across much of the Japanese
archipelago. Japanese and Western scholars examine the system from three
different perspectives: the land itself; power derived from and exerted
over the land; and the religious institutions, individuals, and beliefs that
were deeply involved in landholding practices. Of special interest to H-Buddhism
members are several chapters that explore the role of institutions such as the
great Nara temple Tōdaiji, charismatic religious figures such as Chōgen, and
small local temples in the establishment and management of estates.
We learn how the system arose, how it
developed and changed, and how it eventually collapsed. Several articles
study a single estate or focus closely on agricultural techniques, while others
explore estates in broad contexts such as economic change or maritime
trade. Other articles explore the ways we learn about estates, through
investigations of documents, landscape features, archaeological remains, and
extant buildings and images. Also examined are the ways in which
representatives from all social strata worked together to make the land
productive—and conversely, how cooperative arrangements collapsed and rival
claimants battled one another, making conflict as well as collaboration a
hallmark of the system. And we learn about the people involved in the
estate system—aristocratic proprietors who used estates as nodes in trade
networks, and local warriors and cultivators who fought to establish and
preserve their own land rights.
The volume is designed to appeal to
several different audiences. Specialists in medieval Japan will find it
useful, since the articles are based on primary source research and offer new
conclusions about the significance and role of the estate system.
Specialists in other fields—pre-modern China, Korea, or Europe, for
example—will find valuable comparative perspectives. The many scholars of
Japanese studies who do not specialize in medieval history will find it useful
for their teaching, especially since one chapter focuses on teaching estates in
the Western classroom. And finally, the chapters themselves should be
useful for both graduate and advanced undergraduate students.
Contributors, in addition to the editors,
are Kristina Buhrman, Michelle Damian, David Eason, Endō Motoo, Philip Garrett,
Hirota Kōji, Yoshiko Kainuma, Rieko Kamei-Dyche, Sachiko Kawai, Kimura
Shigemitsu, Nagamura Makoto, Nishida Takeshi, Noda Taizō, Ōyama Kyōhei, Sakurai
Eiji, Ethan Segal, and Dan Sherer.
