TOMORROW: Thursday, September 22nd, 6 PM, 403 Kent Hall, Columbia University
Disembodiment of an Everyday Object and Changing Regional Identity: Pushing against the Center in Southern Okinawa
Amanda Mayer Stinchecum (Independent scholar)
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
Tomorrow evening, Dr. Amanda Mayer Stinchecum will give her presentation entitled “Disembodiment of an Everyday Object and Changing Regional Identity: Pushing against the Center in Southern Okinawa.” Dr. Stinchecum specializes in the history and material culture of Okinawa Prefecture’s Yaeyama islands. Please join us and help kick off another exciting season at the Donald Keene Center.
Disembodiment of an Everyday Object and Changing Regional Identity: Pushing against the Center in Southern Okinawa
Thursday 22 September, 6 PM
Kent Hall, Room 403, Columbia University
No registration required.
A narrow, indigo-dyed cotton sash is decorated with clusters of four and five white rectangles. Its production has been unique to five islands in Yaeyama, at the southern end of Okinawa Prefecture. Transcending boundaries of usage, class and meaning over the course of 140 years, the sash became a legend. But as it disappeared from everyday use, it became the exclusive province of islanders representing themselves in local performances.
What were once sharper distinctions among the islands have blurred, giving rise to a new, Yaeyama-wide identity, now symbolized by the sash’s abstract motif. Beyond the appeal of its bold design, its significant role as the marker of a new Yaeyama does not adequately explain its ubiquitous presence. I suggest that it also functions as a protective talisman, rooted in a belief, widespread in the Ryukyus, Japan, and elsewhere in Asia, in the spiritual power of cloth. As the Yaeyama islands struggle to affirm their separateness from the prefecture’s political center on Okinawa Island, the sash’s motif has begun to appear on Okinawa as well. The prefecture, too, is struggling to assert itself against Japan’s political pressure and homogenizing influence.
Amanda Mayer Stinchecum is an independent scholar specializing in the history and material culture of the Ryukyu Islands, particularly Okinawa Prefecture’s southernmost island group, Yaeyama. Topics of current research include textiles, clothing and regional museums in the converging contexts of heritage preservation, tourism development, performing arts and shifting identities. She received her PhD in Classical Japanese and Comparative Literature from Columbia, and is a Research Associate at the Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies, Harvard, and at the Institute for Okinawan Studies, Hōsei University.
All events are free and open to the public.
Sponsored by the Orient Finance Co. Endowment for the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia University.
Please visit our website, www.keenecenter.org, for the latest information on our events.
Upcoming Events for Fall 2016
[All events take place at Columbia University. The following information is subject to change.]
September
Amanda Mayer Stinchecum (Independent scholar)
Disembodiment of an Everyday Object and Changing Regional Identity: Pushing against the Center in Southern Okinawa
Thursday 22 September, 6 PM, 403 Kent Hall, Columbia University
October
Takashi Fujitani (Dr. David Chu Professor and Director in Asia Pacific Studies, Professor of History, University of Toronto)
Two Unforgivens: Clint Eastwood, Lee Sang-Il, and the Transpacific Western
Thursday 6 October, 6 PM, 403 Kent Hall, Columbia University
Andrea Gevurtz Arai (Affiliate Lecturer, Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington)
The Strange Child: Education and the Psychology of Patriotism in Recessionary Japan
Thursday 13 October, 6 PM, 403 Kent Hall, Columbia University
November
Gennifer Weisenfeld (Professor in the Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies, and Dean of the Humanities, Duke University)
Electric Design: Light, Labor, and Leisure in Prewar Japanese Advertising
Thursday 17 November, 6 PM, 403 Kent Hall, Columbia University
December
Paul Anderer (Mack Professor of Humanities, Professor of Japanese Literature, Director of Undergraduate Studies, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University)
Kurosawa’s Rashomon: A Vanished City, a Lost Brother, and the Voice Inside His Iconic Films(Pegasus Books, October 2016)
Friday 2 December, Starting time TBA, 403 Kent Hall, Columbia University
Co-sponsored by University Seminar on Japanese Culture
