2019 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Joruri as Living Theater: Representations of Women in the Golden Age of Joruri in Early Modern Japan
| Project/Area Number |
19K13068
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| Research Institution | Waseda University |
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Principal Investigator |
高井 詩穂 早稲田大学, 文学学術院, 准教授 (60813780)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2019-04-01 – 2023-03-31
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| Keywords | Puppet Theater / Representation of Women / Adaptation / Popular Culture / Performance |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
This project is to conduct research on how female characters were represented in eighteenth-century joruri puppet theater through textual and visual examination of contemporary joruri-related publications. My ongoing project is to consider the role of joruri as a theatrical form that reflects yet resists contemporary social codes, while functioning as popular entertainment.
In the first year, I approached this project in two ways: First, to revisit, collect, and sort the primary and secondary materials for analysis, and to reexamine the scope of my research. Second, to closely examine two joruri adaptations of the medieval Dojoji legend, focusing on the heroine, as a case study of how joruri transformed religious cautionary tales into a theatrical art that highlights human emotions through depicting women. The close analysis of the two plays highlighted their differing attitudes towards how male and female realms (should) interact with each other, and how much agency female characters that represent human emotions are allowed to have. These differences are invaluable hints to understanding the development of joruri as popular theater during its height in the eighteenth century, as well as to gender dynamics during the mid-to-late Edo period.
I presented the preliminary idea in an international conference and published an article in a journal focused on gender.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed.
Reason
Because of difficulties traveling due to pregnancy, and suspending my research in the middle of the year, I could not conduct on-site research as much as I planned, and I had to limit the scope mostly to Dojoji-related works. However, I started preliminary online research of eighteenth-century theatrical publications relating to other works I plan to investigate, in order to start the on-site archival research more smoothly when I resume my project.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
I plan to take continued parental leave in fiscal year 2020. I will resume my research from fiscal year 2021, and will pick up where I left off in the first year by doing more on-site archival research, especially on visual materials (ezukushi picturebooks). I also plan to present my research at an international conference, such as the annual meeting of the Association of Asian Studies in March 2022.
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| Causes of Carryover |
Because of my pregnancy and related health conditions, I could not make as many research trips as I had planned. I suspended my research in January 2020. I will submit a revised research plan before coming back from my parental leave, including more research trips and international conference trips.
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Research Products
(2 results)
