Periodic Reporting for period 2 - WHEREAL (World Heritage and East Asian Literature – Sinitic writings in Japan as Literary Heritage)
Reporting period: 2020-06-01 to 2021-05-31
What role do books and other textual products play in the constitution of the cultural identity of people living in multicultural and complex societies? Is it possible to redefine classical and premodern literature as "textual heritage", and what does it means?
The WHEREAL project was aimed at opening a new area of inquiry where literary studies – especially those related to premodern sources – and heritage studies could meet to foster a deeper understanding of how past cultures impact present societies, and how the past texts and classical literary works are understood, used, and recreated to answer present social needs, for example concerning issues of cultural identity or the consolidation of shared and authorized memories. The project, that was rooted on the experience of literary studies and area studies, with a focus on premodern East Asian and Japanese literature, wanted to challenge the academic community of both literary and heritage studies, proposing a new theoretical category of “textual heritage” to be debated and used by other scholars in Japan and worldwide.
Texts are one of the clearer witnesses of how people of the past thought and felt about their cultural heritage, and they constitute at the same time a cultural asset themselves, like precious manuscripts or books being conserved into archives and museums. But unlike other forms of cultural products like painting or statues, texts are necessarily encoded into a specific language, that marks that text as belonging to a specific country, ethnic community and people. Language is indeed one of the most distinctive characteristic of the so called “national identity”, but the example of Sinitic writing (=classical Chinese) in premodern Japan makes this assumption both complex and inaccurate, as Japanese literary history is characterized by an extremely strong diglossia between Japanese (wabun) and Sinitic (kanbun) that continued at least up to the early 20th century, determining many aspects of linguistic and literary forms of Japan today.
To understand how people of the past, even in a non-european country like Japan, thought and negotiated their cultural identity through the use, conservation and recreation of texts, is a very powerful tool to rethink and relativize western-centered assumption about the transmission of textual sources – like the so called “Classics” – and the management of past memories and culture.
The WHEREAL project is important for the world society, and the European society in particular, because it fosters the understanding of the role of literature and writing in the consolidation of cultural identity, stimulating public debates on how to promote respect for cultural diversity in the 21st century Europe, intended not as a group of nations, but a lively multicultural and trans-national environment.
The overall objective of the research was to provide a definition of “textual heritage” in order to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue about ownership, authorship, authenticity of cultural goods and the management of past, both as physical embodiments like books and manuscripts, as well as intangible knowledge of reading, writing and translating. The proposed study of the discourse on heritage and Sinitic writings in Japan provided the opportunity to reflect on these issues from an external, more objective point of view.
The WHEREAL project was aimed at opening a new area of inquiry where literary studies – especially those related to premodern sources – and heritage studies could meet to foster a deeper understanding of how past cultures impact present societies, and how the past texts and classical literary works are understood, used, and recreated to answer present social needs, for example concerning issues of cultural identity or the consolidation of shared and authorized memories. The project, that was rooted on the experience of literary studies and area studies, with a focus on premodern East Asian and Japanese literature, wanted to challenge the academic community of both literary and heritage studies, proposing a new theoretical category of “textual heritage” to be debated and used by other scholars in Japan and worldwide.
Texts are one of the clearer witnesses of how people of the past thought and felt about their cultural heritage, and they constitute at the same time a cultural asset themselves, like precious manuscripts or books being conserved into archives and museums. But unlike other forms of cultural products like painting or statues, texts are necessarily encoded into a specific language, that marks that text as belonging to a specific country, ethnic community and people. Language is indeed one of the most distinctive characteristic of the so called “national identity”, but the example of Sinitic writing (=classical Chinese) in premodern Japan makes this assumption both complex and inaccurate, as Japanese literary history is characterized by an extremely strong diglossia between Japanese (wabun) and Sinitic (kanbun) that continued at least up to the early 20th century, determining many aspects of linguistic and literary forms of Japan today.
To understand how people of the past, even in a non-european country like Japan, thought and negotiated their cultural identity through the use, conservation and recreation of texts, is a very powerful tool to rethink and relativize western-centered assumption about the transmission of textual sources – like the so called “Classics” – and the management of past memories and culture.
The WHEREAL project is important for the world society, and the European society in particular, because it fosters the understanding of the role of literature and writing in the consolidation of cultural identity, stimulating public debates on how to promote respect for cultural diversity in the 21st century Europe, intended not as a group of nations, but a lively multicultural and trans-national environment.
The overall objective of the research was to provide a definition of “textual heritage” in order to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue about ownership, authorship, authenticity of cultural goods and the management of past, both as physical embodiments like books and manuscripts, as well as intangible knowledge of reading, writing and translating. The proposed study of the discourse on heritage and Sinitic writings in Japan provided the opportunity to reflect on these issues from an external, more objective point of view.
Work Package 1: Textual analysis of Sinitic writings in pre-modern Japan
The WP1 has been focused on research and analysis of specific Sinitic texts related to the topic of heritage conservation and re-creation, where “heritage” is meant as textual resources and literary works of the past.
The deliverables of this work package consist in a number of papers, in Japanese and English, published on different journals and books.
Work package 2 - Theoretical definition of “literary heritage”
1) workshop “Textual Heritage: Uses and Re-creations – Ownership, Authorship, and Authenticity in Japanese Premodern Literature” (https://www.waseda.jp/inst/sgu/news-en/2020/09/23/7780/)
2) 8 people panel titled “Defining “Textual Heritage”. Multidisciplinary approaches to the heritagization of texts, with a focus on Japan”, at the 5th Biannual Conference of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies (ACHS 2020), including an individual presentation by the researcher.
3) a panel (3 panelists + 1 discussant) titled “Uses and Re-creations of “Literary Heritage” in Premodern Japan” for the international conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies (EAJS), delayed to August 2021.
4) an international symposium titled “Textual Heritage for the 21st Century - Exploring the Potential of a New Analytic Category”, (https://www.unive.it/textualheritage) with 8 panelists divided in three days, with two keynotes by Wiebke Denecke (MIT) and David C. Harvey (Aarhus U.).
Work package 3: WP3: Compilation of a syllabus of Sinitic texts in Japan (SO3) (months 25–36)
The syllabus has been adapted to fit a 15 lessons-course, but it may be exported and adapted to different formats and courses. The fellow put much effort to show various databases of Japanese books and documents and to teach how to proficiently use them.
Work package 4 - Dissemination and public engagement (months 7–36)
• Participation to invited lectures, workshops, winter school to present the concept of "textual heritage".
The WP1 has been focused on research and analysis of specific Sinitic texts related to the topic of heritage conservation and re-creation, where “heritage” is meant as textual resources and literary works of the past.
The deliverables of this work package consist in a number of papers, in Japanese and English, published on different journals and books.
Work package 2 - Theoretical definition of “literary heritage”
1) workshop “Textual Heritage: Uses and Re-creations – Ownership, Authorship, and Authenticity in Japanese Premodern Literature” (https://www.waseda.jp/inst/sgu/news-en/2020/09/23/7780/)
2) 8 people panel titled “Defining “Textual Heritage”. Multidisciplinary approaches to the heritagization of texts, with a focus on Japan”, at the 5th Biannual Conference of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies (ACHS 2020), including an individual presentation by the researcher.
3) a panel (3 panelists + 1 discussant) titled “Uses and Re-creations of “Literary Heritage” in Premodern Japan” for the international conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies (EAJS), delayed to August 2021.
4) an international symposium titled “Textual Heritage for the 21st Century - Exploring the Potential of a New Analytic Category”, (https://www.unive.it/textualheritage) with 8 panelists divided in three days, with two keynotes by Wiebke Denecke (MIT) and David C. Harvey (Aarhus U.).
Work package 3: WP3: Compilation of a syllabus of Sinitic texts in Japan (SO3) (months 25–36)
The syllabus has been adapted to fit a 15 lessons-course, but it may be exported and adapted to different formats and courses. The fellow put much effort to show various databases of Japanese books and documents and to teach how to proficiently use them.
Work package 4 - Dissemination and public engagement (months 7–36)
• Participation to invited lectures, workshops, winter school to present the concept of "textual heritage".
WHEREAL reinforced the weight of Japanese studies and area studies in Italy and Europe with unprecedented collaborations and networks with academic institutions worldwide as the University of Beijing, Yale University and Harvard University, in addition to the many universities and research institutions in Japan, like Waseda University, Tohoku University, the Research Institute for Japanese Literature, the International Research Centre for Japanese Studies, Kansai University, Kanazawa University.
The new interdisciplinary and international perspective WHEREAL offered through the theorization of the concept of “textual heritage”, demonstrated the potential European founded projects have to dramatically enrich the ability of the academic community to offer an innovative insight regarding issues that are globally felt as impellent, like the understanding of management, production, safeguarding and spreading of cultures, the meaning of the past in present societies, the sharing of knowledge and identity in a multiconnected society. The fellow is now firmly tied to international research projects and teams that spread from Japan to America, and these new networks will benefit the host institution, Ca’ Foscari University, as well as all of the European field of Japanese studies and heritage studies.
The new interdisciplinary and international perspective WHEREAL offered through the theorization of the concept of “textual heritage”, demonstrated the potential European founded projects have to dramatically enrich the ability of the academic community to offer an innovative insight regarding issues that are globally felt as impellent, like the understanding of management, production, safeguarding and spreading of cultures, the meaning of the past in present societies, the sharing of knowledge and identity in a multiconnected society. The fellow is now firmly tied to international research projects and teams that spread from Japan to America, and these new networks will benefit the host institution, Ca’ Foscari University, as well as all of the European field of Japanese studies and heritage studies.