Waka Workshop 2013

March 26, 2013

The Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures and the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University host the “Waka Workshop” (seventh in the series started at the University of British Columbia and continued at Columbia, UCLA, Stanford, and Yale in previous years) on March 1 and 2, 2013. Readings and discussions at the 2013 workshop will focus on Shakkyōka (釈教歌) of the Heian and Kamakura periods as found in the Imperial anthologies (chokusenshū 勅撰集) and elsewhere—in independent devotional series, in personal anthologies, etc. We will consider the problem of how best to define Shakkyōka—as a form, a sub-genre, a practice?—and how to understand it in relationship to other devotional uta, other Buddhist devotional practices, and to waka in general. The program will include one and a half full days of readings to be discussed as a group and related presentations to be given by American, Japanese, and European scholars: they include (in alphabetical order) Araki Hiroshi (Nichibunken), Hirano Tae (Jūmonji Gakuen Joshi Daigaku), Stephen Miller (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), Jean-Nöel Robert (Collège de France), Takeshi Watanabe (Connecticut College/Wesleyan University), including a graduate student panel comprised of Luciana Sanga, Riley Soles, Ethan Bushelle, and Ashton Lazaru. The workshop will be conducted in both English and Japanese and will conclude after the morning session on March 2nd.

Full event details can be found at http://ceas.yale.edu/events/waka-workshop-shakkyoka