Song in an Age of Discord
I'm working on a book review for
The Japan Studies Review. It should have been finished a long time ago. It's on a topic that will be of great interest to haiku fans, especially those who want to find out more about the history of Japanese poetry.
The book is
H. Mack Horton's
Song in an Age of Discord: 'The Journal of Sôchô' and Poetic Life in Late Medieval Japan, published by Stanford University Press in June 2002. Here's the Table of Contents:
1/ "These useless products of my brush": Sôchô and His Journal
2/"What is to become of me as I travel on my way?": 'The Journal of Sôchô' as Travel Literature
3/ "How I do love a garden": 'The Journal of Sôchô' and the Literature of Eremitism
4/ A diary of things both serious and frivolus": Poetry in 'The Journal of Sôchô.'
It concludes with an epilogue and thre are three appendices: The Imagawa House Lineage, Two Early Biographies of Sôchô, and Major Works by Sôchô, as well as two glossaries. There are also illustrations in a separate section.
From the flyleaf:
Song in an Age of Discord is a companion volume to the author's translation of The Journal of Sôchô, the travel diary and poetic memoir of Saiokuken Sôchô (1448-1532), the preeminent linked-verse (renga) poet of his generation. The Journal--which records several journeys that Sôchô made between Kyoto and Suruga Province during the tumultuous Age of the Country at War--is unparalled in the literature of the period for its range of commentary and freshness of detail, and for its impressive array of literary genres, including more than 600 poems.
This review has to get done soon, so I'll be back here working on it before very long.
Poetry for Chemists, Poetry for Teachers
I had hoped to write in more detail about the Pedagogy Seminar, which has been going very well Maybe I'll have some time this weekend, as its a long weekend.
In the meantime, here are a couple of things related to poetry:
Daphne Norton mentioned Roald Hoffman, who is both a scientist and poet. To quote her description, "Professor Hoffman received the Nobel Prize for the development of a theory to model molecular orbitals and explain interactions between electrons
that impact reactivity and structure." She gave us a link to his website,
here, and highly recommends the poem, "Fluorite."
Dr. Gregory mentioned another book related to both poetry and teaching,
Teaching with Fire: Poetry that Sustains the Courage to Teach, Intrator and Scribner, eds. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003. Anything that sustains the courage to teach must be good, in my view.
Pedagogy Seminar
I'm now taking a 30-hour seminar on pedagogy, led by
Marshall Gregory of Butler University. There are about 12 other Emory faculty in the course. It's a wonderful opportunity to think and reflect on what we do in the classroom, and how to do it better.
Many of the articles we're reading were written by Professor Gregory, but most are not. Some of the ones we've covered so far are:
Bain, Ken. "What Makes Great Teachers Great"
Brookfield, Stephen. "Teaching Responsively"
Gregory, Marshall. "Forgetting, Learning, and Living: A Pedagogical Theory of How Education Makes a Difference even Though We Forget Most of What We Learn"
--. "Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Teacherly Ethos: Being Friendly and Befriending"
Parini, Jay. The Art of Teaching (excerpts)
Spector, Marshall. "'Look at Me!'--A Teaching Primer"
We also were treated to presentations on teaching (more or less along the lines of what's normally called a "teaching demonstration") by members of the course.
Pat Marsteller gave a wonderful presentation on
Problem-Based Learning, and
Pat Cahill demonstrated how she would lead a discussion on a Shakespeare play. Both of these sessions were thrilling--when you're with a good teacher you just
feel smarter, somehow--and it's great to be in the company of people who are serious about teaching.
I have to give a presentation myself tomorrow, and am not sure how I'm going to go about it. I'm going to look over some of the things I've written on this blog about teaching, and see if there's anything there that can help.
This afternoon I asked my friend Ling about what she thought was good about good teachers. She said "encouragement." This seems obvious, but for her encouragement wasn't just someone pointlessly saying "great! you did a good job!" but more about someone creating incentives for you to do your best. I mentioned that I was thinking about how the Chinese character for teach, 教, is a graph of a cringing child being beaten with a stick. She reminded me that there's a distinction between punishment and encouragement.
I don't know where this is taking me, but it's the place I'm going to start from. I don't think that the intention of this seminar is to get people thinking they need to get out their sticks and start swinging. So let's see what I can come up with.
I'll make sure to tell you if it's interesting.
A Letter to a Professor
Today I start a two-week seminar on pedagogy.
Thinking about
this letter I read on sothere.com. It's not addressed to me specifically--the letters there are addressed to everyone--but as I begin the seminar, it helps to reflect on what we're doing and what it sometimes means.
Japanese Classical Literature at Bedtime
Japanese Classical Literature at Bedtime is a wonderful place. It's a non-commercial podcast of selected works of pre-modern Japanese literature. The author thoughtfully includes links to e-versions of most of the texts.
Of most interest to Weblog Yahantei visitors is the reading of Bashô's
Oku no hosomichi (Narrow road to the interior). However, there are also excerpts from
Genji monogatari (Tale of Genji),
Tosa nikki (Tosa diary),
Hôjôki (Account of my hut) and others.
Give it a try!
E-Dictionaries; Studying Japanese; New Simply Haiku
Over at
H-Japan, John Campbell brings our attention to
this page where Henry Smith reviews recent Japanese electronic dictionaries. Japanese electronic dictionaries really are the coolest bits of tech ever; they're like a little library of reference tools tucked neatly into a palm-sized package. The development of electronic dictionaries certainly helped those of us who would find themselves schlepping around from library to library carrying various kinds of dictionaries in book form: kanji, ei-wa, wa-ei, classical etc., and feeling dumber than a sackful of hammers. Not to mention having nowhere left to pack a lunch. Professor Campbell has his eye on the Seiko SII SR-E100000--available at the vertiginous price of JPY 78,300.
This looks like a good blog for learners of Japanese:
Japanese! Japanese! Pity about the name.
Simply Haiku has a new issue now. Lovely picture of a seagull there to make you feel all summery. There's a permanent link to this site on the right.
Williams Paper Museum; National Diet Library
Yesterday I met with the curators of the
Robert C. Williams Paper Museum at Georgia Tech to talk about their plans for a workshop in November on Japanese papermaking. The workshop is planned for two classes of fifth graders--we'll post more information about it when more of the details are finalized.
In the meantime, this is a fabulous place with a small but fascinating library of books about papermaking and great exhibits.
Also, try this
link to the Japanese National Diet Library's digital collection. I'm not sure how it works or I'd have added it to my links collection. But I hope to try it myself soon, so I've put it here as a reminder.
Neglect
This blog has suffered from some neglect over the past few months as we were involved in teaching and the other things that make the semester a bit intense. I'm working through everyone's finals and papers now, though, and I hope that will be done soon so I'll get to write some more things on this blog.
Highlights for the upcoming months:
0. Pedagogy seminar (last two weeks in May).
1. Revising the book.
2. Revising an article on women haikai poets.
3. Working on a conference paper for the Asian Studies Association of Australia's bi-annual conference (end of June).
4. Getting ready for two new classes: a film course with Matthew Bernstein and a new freshman seminar.
Something to look forward to, anyway.
Old and in the Way
I was saddened to see this article in the
New York Times yesterday:
Village Writes its Own EpitaphMany rural towns and villages in Japan are suffering a serious problem: young people leave to find work elsewhere and never come back. The older people left behind struggle to survive. This story tells of one village where the people decided that their only option was to shut their own village down, and sell their homes and lands to a waste management company.
The Times requires a subscription to read some of its articles. Here's a quotation for those of you who don't have one. If you want to read more, try logging in from your public library, or if you can, subscribe--it's well worth it.
"I'm sure we're the first ones to have made such a proposal," said Kazuo Miyasaka, 64, the village leader. "It's because there's no future for us here, zero."
On a hill overlooking a field of overgrown bushes, surrounded by the sounds of a running stream and a bush warbler, Mr. Miyasaka pointed below with his right index finger. "I never imagined it would come to this," he said. "I mean, those all used to be rice fields."
Ogama's decision, though extreme, points to a larger problem besetting Japan, which has one of the world's fastest-graying societies and whose population began declining last year for the first time in its history. As rural Japan becomes increasingly depopulated, many villages and hamlets like Ogama, along with their traditions and histories, risk vanishing.
Thinking of you, YK.
