PMJS Publication Announcement: January 2026
Abigail MacBain
Dear colleagues,
Below please find our monthly bulletin compiling information on publications by and recommendations from PMJS members. All details below were submitted through the PMJS Publication Announcements online form.
Publication type: Article
Author: Yen-Yi Chan
Affiliation: Sophia University
Title: Fashioning the Body of the Historical Buddha: The Robes on the Bujoji Shaka Statue and Appropriation of Song-Dynasty Chinese Art
Citation: Artibus Asiae, no. 85.1 (2025): 35-80
Summary: This article investigates the appropriation of Song-dynasty (960-1279) Chinese visual motifs in the design of the robes carved on a Shaka sculpture from Bujōji temple in Kyoto. Created around 1199, this sculpture was commissioned by Buddhist devotees associated with the eminent monks, Jōkei (1155-1213) and Chōgen (1121-1206). By analyzing the items placed inside this sculpture and the religious devotion of these devotees, the article argues that the incorporation of Chinese visual motifs was intended to fashion a new representation of Shaka as a savior akin to Amida—one who could appear before devotees to grant them salvation. Rather than viewing this representation as a counteraction against Amida devotion, this article suggests it reflects a pluralistic approach to salvation. Furthermore, the robes were likely regarded as relic-like objects, embodying the living presence of the Buddha, his salvific power, and supreme compassion as described in the Hikekyō and Jōkei’s teachings.
Release Date: June, 2025
Website:https://www.artibusasiae.com/
Publication type: Article
Author: Robert F. Wittkamp
Affiliation:Kansai University (Osaka)
Title: The Man’yōshū Ur-Selection and the Shift to Chronological Historiography
Citation: Bochumer Jahrbuch für Ostasienforschung / Bochum Yearbook of East Asien Studies 47 (2024), pp. 243 - 266.
Language: English
Summary: The present study concerns the initial selection of poems, which was supplemented and extended in several stages. While the existence of such an ur-selection itself is unquestioned, how many and which poems it comprised remains unclear. Focus is on the first book of the extant anthology, based on a hypothesis that the ur-selection consisted of the first fifty-three poems. A different model is also discussed, and it is shown that not all possibilities have been exhausted by previous research to identify the ur-selection more precisely. In the model presented here, the original selection consists of fifty poems, which form a coherent, consistent anthology. It is also shown that the compilation of the ur-selection was subject to a different episteme – or intention – which ties it more closely to the Kojiki. The ur-selection followed a rather spatially-based order that had to give way to a temporal order in a shift to chronological historiography. For the understanding of the ur-selection, it is therefore necessary to re-read it from the perspective of an older, different worldview.
Release Date: December 31, 2025
Website:Homepage Bochum University (online 1 year after publication)
Contact:Robert F. Wittkamp witt...@kansai-u.ac.jp
Publication type: Article
Author: Robert F. Wittkamp
Affiliation:Kansai University (Osaka)
Title: Zwischen Autor und erzähltem Ich – Zu den Instanzen der Medialität in der narrativen Man’yōshū-Dichtung
Citation: Asiatische Studien AS/EA 79(3), pp. 553–583 (open access)
Language: German
Summary: The Man’yōshū is the oldest extant anthology of Japanese poetry. The compilation of over 4,500 poems and some short prose texts into twenty books commenced during the 690s as an initial selection of about fifty poems. During the process of additions to this selection, which could have continued until the end of the eighth century, some poems were annotated. The original titles of these poems provide valuable insights into the circumstances of their composition and the names of their respective poets. However, since certain details were unclear at the outset of the eighth century, the editors endeavored to clarify the circumstances by referring to other texts. It is therefore the titles of the poems as well as the annotations that come into particular focus in the following observations. A further objective is to analyze the speaker instances (author, abstract author, narrating I, and narrated I). Based on a model of Western narratology that pertains to the narrator, an attempt will be made to provide a more comprehensive analysis of these instances.
Release Date: November 2025
Website:open access Asiatische Studien
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/asia-2025-0009
Contact:Robert F. Wittkamp witt...@kansai-u.ac.jp
Publication type: Book chapter
Author: Antonin Ferré
Affiliation:Princeton University, PhD candidate
Title: 〈文学〉と〈政治〉を結ぶ記録――「花山院書写山御幸記」について [Bridging “Literature” and “Politics”: On the “Account of Retired Emperor Kazan’s Pilgrimages to Shoshazan”]
Citation: In 古代文学研究の現在 [Current Trends in the Study of Ancient Literature], eds. Testsuno Masahiro 鉄野昌弘 and Takagi Kazuko 高木和子, pp. 328–46. Tokyo: Seikansha.
Language: Japanese
Summary: This chapter investigates the understudied account of Retired Emperor Kazan’s 1002 pilgrimage to Shoshazan (modern Ehime Prefecture). After making original claims about the text’s authorship, I argue that structural, thematic and stylistic commonalities unequivocally connect this record to that of Emperor Uda’s excursion to Yoshino in 898. These parallels, however, are not only of a literary nature. By fashioning himself after the activist emperor of the late ninth century, I contend, Kazan was attempting to project a form of royal charisma that the supremacy of the Fujiwara household seldom allowed in the high Heian.
Release Date: 12/2025
Website:https://www.seikansha.co.jp/story#ttl-37
Contact:Antonin Ferré (afe...@princeton.edu)
To recommend a title for next month’s announcement, please fill out the online form. Submissions can be submitted by authors themselves or by PMJS members who are eager to share other scholars’ recent publications.
For any questions or comments on the submission format, please contact Abigail MacBain (abigail...@ed.ac.uk). Note: Please do not email requesting a publication to be posted; only those submitted through the above form will be listed.