Tag: Japan
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Beyond Bueller: Day Tripping at The Art Institute of Chicago
So last time I promised you all a “beach episode,” and still made you learn stuff about medieval Japan, which was arguably kind of an abuse of the term beach episode. So this week, I thought I’d give you a real break from our current stream and do a museum entry instead! Because last week…
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In the Uncanny Valley: Yōkai and the Wild World of Japanese Folklore
Okay, y’all have been very patient as we’ve discussed medieval Japanese history and literature the past couple of weeks. And while I have at least one more historical entry lined up discussing the Lady Safflower emperors, I figured you earned a little break. So this week, we’re going to have a bit of a “beach…
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Dispatches From the Margins: The Women Diarists of Heian Japan
I know that I’m behind my usual schedule this week, but I took a self-care day yesterday to get a second look at the Carnegie International. And I’m glad I did, because I was able to get some clarifications on musings I had in my May entry, mainly: 1) yes, asinnajaq’s cross-environment installation in the…
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The Illusions of Peace: A Brief Introduction to Heian Japan
Okay, as promised, we’re going to start some discussions on the general milieu of my latest book, Lady Safflower, and it seemed like the best place to start is with its historical setting: Heian-era Japan (794 CE—1185). And while I won’t be able to hit everything involved in a four hundred year timeframe in a…
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Preview for LADY SAFFLOWER
I’ve been a bit quiet on the writing front since Daughter of Scorpions came out last year—so quiet that some of you might have thought maybe I was taking a year off book-wise. (Un)fortunately for all of you, that is not the case, and I am eyeballs deep on my copyedit review of my next…
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Old is New Again: Mishima Yukio’s Five Modern Noh Plays
A few years ago here, we talked about the Japanese theatrical genre of noh (aka, the one with masks). While kabuki (the one with makeup) was and remains the more well-known and popular stage form in Japan, the older and more technical noh, born as it was from Shinto temple rituals, has deep roots, and…
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Day Tripping at the Met, Part 3: A Little Bit of Everything Else
Okay, folks we’ve made it to the third and final entry in my Met roundup, where I try to wrap up everything else that I saw after I escaped the first floor of the museum (and try not to think about all of the stuff I didn’t have time to see). A truly impossible task,…
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Renos and Revamps: Updates From the CMOA and CMNH
I am up to my eyeballs in pre-publication work for The Gourd and the Stars, so I’m afraid I don’t have a super substantial post for this week. But I did take a much-needed mental break trip to the Carnegie museums last week, and since there were a number of changes to exhibits and situations…
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Continuity, Change, and Collaboration: Post-Meiji Art and Printmaking in Japan
I love Japanese art and culture, but I usually don’t spend a lot of time saying so in public because that statement generally elicits presupposed knowledge about anime or J-Pop, of which I am a dilettante (the former) or almost completely ignorant (the latter). No, most of you who have been playing the home game…
Sarah Holz 