ROUNDTABLE: Book Studies: Materiality and Method in Asian Studies

Session Submission Type: Roundtable Proposal Application

Abstract

This roundtable seeks to provoke discussion among Asian Studies scholars about the issue of materiality (material culture) in the academic discipline of Book Studies. In theoretical terms, Book Studies proposes that the physical book—and not only its contents--embodies values and beliefs, art and narrative; the book’s material form informs reading and hermeneutic practice and is enmeshed in histories of technological and economic change. Methodologically, Book Studies asks the researcher to analyze the physical book.

Panelists will offer case studies of books in Japan as a means of raising issues about such assumptions that guide research on and pedagogical approaches to printed and manuscript books and book cultures in pre- and early modern East Asia. Is there value in paying attention to three-dimensional aspects of paper, text and image formats, binding, xylographic and letterpress printing, and scribal texts? Do the differences between digital and physical books matter? Finally, are European regimes of cultural values reflected in the dominant field of Book Studies?

The format will allow for in-depth discussion with the audience. Presenters will each start with a case study on one aspect of materiality (7 minutes each). The larger questions we raise will stimulate audience participation by students of other Asian book cultures. Davis will explore relationships between text and image in two formats of illustrated books about the Yoshiwara, asking how the producers used materiality to shape reading and reception. Mulholland will focus on the layouts of the 19th century proto-comic book Jiraiya gôketsu monogatari as an example of how new trends in Japanese illustrated fiction required readers to physically manipulate the book for reading. Chance will probe how typesetting of modern editions undermines aesthetic and literary meanings of a calligraphed xylographic 17th century kimono pattern book. Sherif will raise issues in scholarly and pedagogical uses of digital books available on library and museum websites. Finally, Kimbrough will discuss the psychological significance of material ownership using a collection of children’s books that were sealed inside a statue of the bodhisattva Jizō upon the death of their young owner in 1678.

Area of Study

• Japan

Session Organizer

• Randle Keller Kimbrough, University of Colorado Boulder

Chair

• Ann Sherif, Oberlin College

Discussants

• Julie Nelson Davis, University of Pennsylvania

• Kevin Mulholland, University of Michigan

• Linda Chance, University of Pennsylvania