Karen M. Gerhart's Books

Women, Rites, and Ritual Objects in Premodern Japan

By: Karen M. Gerhart

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Women, Rites, and Ritual Objects in Premodern Japan

By: Karen M. Gerhart

Women, Rites, and Ritual Objects in Premodern Japan, edited by Karen M. Gerhart, is a multidisciplinary examination of rituals featuring women, in which significant attention is paid to objects produced for and utilized in these rites as a lens through which larger cultural concerns, such as gender politics, the female body, and the materiality of the ritual objects, are explored. The ten chapters encounter women, rites, and ritual objects in many new and interactive ways and constitute a pioneering attempt to combine ritual and gendered analysis with the study of objects. Contributors include: Anna Andreeva, Monica Bethe, Patricia Fister, Sherry Fowler, Karen M. Gerhart, Hank Glassman, Naoko Gunji, Elizabeth Morrissey, Chari Pradel, Barbara Ruch, Elizabeth Self.

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Page Count

435

Publisher

BRILL

Published Date

ISBN 10

9004368191

ISBN 13

9789004368194

The Eyes of Power

Art and Early Tokugawa Authority

By: Karen Margaret Gerhart

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The Eyes of Power

Art and Early Tokugawa Authority

By: Karen Margaret Gerhart

In this study of the political thrust behind some of the most important officially sponsored art of the early Tokugawa, Karen Gerhart takes as her focus the heyday of the rule of the third Tokugawa shogun, Iemitsu. She analyzes aspects of painting, architecture and sculpture created expressly under the patronage of Iemitsu at three major monuments - the castles an Nijo and Nagoya and the sumptuous decoration of the great Tokugawa mausoleum, Nikko Toshogu. In highlighting key examples of artistic production, Gerhart brings to the fore significant themes and issues that exemplify political art in the first half of the 17th century.

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Page Count

236

Publisher

University of Hawaii Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0824821785

ISBN 13

9780824821784

The Material Culture of Death in Medieval Japan

By: Karen Margaret Gerhart

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The Material Culture of Death in Medieval Japan

By: Karen Margaret Gerhart

This study is the first in the English language to explore the ways medieval Japanese sought to overcome their sense of powerlessness over death. By attending to both religious practice and ritual objects used in funerals in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, it seeks to provide a new understanding of the relationship between the two. Karen Gerhart looks at how these special objects and rituals functioned by analyzing case studies culled from written records, diaries, and illustrated handscrolls, and by examining surviving funerary structures and painted and sculpted images. The work is divided into two parts, beginning with compelling depictions of funerary and memorial rites of several members of the aristocracy and military elite. The second part addresses the material culture of death and analyzes objects meant to sequester the dead from the living: screens, shrouds, coffins, carriages, wooden fences. This is followed by an examination of implements (banners, canopies, censers, musical instruments, offering vessels) used in memorial rituals. The final chapter discusses the various types of and uses for portraits of the deceased, focusing on the manner of their display, the patrons who commissioned them, and the types of rituals performed in front of them. Gerhart delineates the distinction between objects created for a single funeral—and meant for use in close proximity to the body, such as coffins—and those, such as banners, intended for use in multiple funerals and other Buddhist services. Richly detailed and generously illustrated, Gerhart introduces a new perspective on objects typically either overlooked by scholars or valued primarily for their artistic qualities. By placing them in the context of ritual, visual, and material culture, she reveals how rituals and ritual objects together helped to comfort the living and improve the deceased’s situation in the afterlife as well as to guide and cement societal norms of class and gender. Not only does her book make a significant contribution in the impressive amount of new information that it introduces, it also makes an important theoretical contribution as well in its interweaving of the interests and approaches of the art historian and the historian of religion. By directly engaging and challenging methodologies relevant to ritual studies, material culture, and art history, it changes once and for all our way of thinking about the visual and religious culture of premodern Japan.

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Page Count

287

Publisher

University of Hawaii Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0824832612

ISBN 13

9780824832612

Book's by Karen M. Gerhart

Women, Rites, and Ritual Objects in Premodern Japan

Women, Rites, and Ritual Objects in Premodern Japan

The Eyes of Power

The Eyes of Power

The Material Culture of Death in Medieval Japan

The Material Culture of Death in Medieval Japan

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