Publication "Japan's Imperial Mythology"

[Klaus Antoni]

Dear Colleagues,

Please allow me to share some personal news regarding our scholarly endeavors. 

In November 2023, our research project "Sacred Narrative - The Political Dimension of Japanese Mythology," which was situated within the DFG (German Science Foundation) Research Group "De/Sacralization of Texts," hosted an international symposium on our research topic.

I am delighted to announce that the publication of the conference proceedings is now available under the title Japan's Imperial Mythology - The Dynamics of Sacred Narratives in History and Politics. (Edited by Klaus Antoni, Julia Dolkovski, Louise Neubronner (https://lit-verlag.de/isbn/978-3-643-91616-7/)).

The volume is distributed by the publishing house LIT-Verlag and will shortly be freely available as an e-book under the DOI: https://doi.org/10.52038/9783643916167.

For an initial thematic overview, please find the table of contents below:

Preface
MYTH IN CONTEMPORARY JAPAN:

• Hirafuji Kikuko: Kojiki Myth and the Jōmon Period in Relation to Postwar Nationalism

• Julia Dolkovski: Connecting Japan to its Mythological Past: A Discussion of Takeda Tsuneyasu's Gendaigo Kojiki

• Jun'ichi Isomae: The Return from the Land of the Dead: Considering the Nuclear Disaster of Fukushima

• Daniel Schley: A Concealed Nature in Miki Kiyoshi's and Maruyama Masao's Theories on Myth

MYTH AND NATIONALISM IN MODERN JAPAN:

• Marcin Lisiecki: Kojiki and the Sacralization of Political Power in Japan: The Case of the Kokutai no hongi

• Michael Wachutka: Propagating Japan's Spiritual Culture: Editorial Compilation and Exegetical Dissemination of Shinto's "Sacred Scriptures"

• Sarah Rebecca Schmid: Myth and Historiography: Jingū kōgō in Meiji Period Print Media

JAPANESE MYTH IN THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD:

• Judit Árokay: The Power of Language: Edo Period Poetic Discourse on the Spoken and the Written Word

• Louise Neubronner: On the Fringes of Imperial Mythology: Peter Kempermann and the Divine Script

• Matthieu Felt: Rethinking Motoori Norinaga and Nihon shoki

• David Weiss: A Confucian Founding Myth for the Japanese State: Wu Taibo as Progenitor of the Imperial Line

MYTH IN PRE-MODERN JAPAN:

• Klaus Antoni: Kōki – the "Imperial Calendar": On the Myth of Jinmu Tennō and the Invention of the Year 660 BCE

• Raji Steineck: Work on Myth in Medieval Japan: Zeami's "Golden Island"

• Maral Andassova: The Emperors in the Kojiki: Exploring Their Relationships with Local Deities

• Kazuo Matsumura: Reconsidering the Mythology of Goddesses: With Special Reference to the Kingship-protecting Sun Goddess

We would be delighted by your interest in the conference results as well as our project research as a whole.

With warm regards from Tübingen, also on behalf of the co-editors Julia Dolkovski and Louise Neubronner,
Klaus Antoni

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Senior Professor

Tuebingen University, Japanese Studies Department