White out

You may have heard about the snow storms over the mid-Atlantic states, which would include my digs in northern Virginia. More than two feet in one week (two separate storms) and everything stopped--no street, no trains, and so no work. I think everyone was getting cabin fever.

The idea of having a snow day was so appealing, but believe me when I say that after a few hours of shoveling snow, I don't want to see another snow flake. Ever. I've had it with the snow.

Anyway, just thought I'd let you know that I'm still alive. A lot of things have happened since Christmas and I may try write a few lines here and there. Not that it would be interesting to anyone but me.

Oh yeah... Happy Valentine's Day.

Season's Greetings

Peace and love, and
a Merry Christmas to all.

First real snow of the year

My last final was Thursday--collecting papers from students for the proseminar course. Now, all I have left to do is grade, but at home there are too many distractions. During my sabbatical, I went to the local library to read, research and write, otherwise I'd end up watching Cesar calming down a dog on the Dog Whisperer, or reading an old issue of Nodame Cantabile, or procrastinating on facebook. So yesterday, Friday, I went to the local library to grade.

And as planned, I was able to finish off two courses--the Bungo exam, the annotated biliobgraphies for the proseminar, and I calculated final grades. Woo hoo!

Just before the library closed, Musubichan came to pick me up, and we went to the local Giant and there were lines out the door. Holy moly, what the heck is happening. M reminded me that there's a snow storm in the forecast and people are probably stocking up. Yeah, right. They said that last time. We finished our shopping and went down the block to our watering hole on Route 123. We had a few beers, shared a salad and fries, and talked with our drinking buddies at the bar. Dude, Brian Kelly! I bet Notre Dame is in the BCS mix in two years.

Around 9 o'clock we decided to mosey along home, and when we opened the door and stepped out, the parking lot was blanketed in an inch of snow. I was a little nervous--beer and snow do not make for optimal driving conditions--but fortunately, we got home safely and went to sleep.
Well, this morning, I woke up and looked outside and saw this:

  

Brrrr...

According to weather.com it will snow for the rest of the day and night, but the forecast is for clear and sunny skies on Sunday. Which means I have about 24 hours to hide the snow shovel and practice my "What shovel?" look.  

H1N1

Thank goodness I haven't exhibited flu-like symptoms like many of my students have--or claim to have: "Sensei, I am exhibiting flu-like symptoms and am unable to attend class today." Hmmm... sounds like a cut and paste job from an email sent by the dean. Oh well, what can you do? I have yet to exhibit anything–knock on wood–but you never know. So I got my seasonal flu shot and am anxiously waiting for the H1N1 vaccine. Of course, if I catch something, then maybe I can take off and rest for a week or so. I'm sure some of my students would appreciate a reprieve from my weekly quizzes and writing assignments.

Anyway, I got an email from President Obama asking me personally to spread the word about their new Flu.gov website. Yes, I get an email from him often, like everyday, sometimes three times a day. Of course, much of it goes something like, "with your tax deductable support we can..." But seriously, the email comes directly from him...

Anyway, everyone, check out the site for the latest info on H1Ni, and please stay healthy and germ free. And always wash those hands!

Sabbatical Report

I began the sabbatical by focusing on collecting further examples of the application of the aesthetic/poetic principle, yūgen (幽玄 lit. mystery and depth), by Fujiwara Shunzei in poetry matches by going through matches he judged starting from the Shigeie Poetry Match of 1166 to the Sengohyakuban Poetry Match of 1201. I have identified thirteen—and I believe all—instances of yūgen in extant documents. Previously, I have determined that this principle—unlike the anachronistic interpretation by many previous scholars who believed that yūgen was applied to “mysterious” content—was applied in reference to poems that manifested an unstable text, poems that had more than one meaning. This instability was based on the poems reference to archaic elements that were somehow sensed but not readily explained. The noted Japanese scholar, Kubota Jun, reached a similar conclusion but makes reference to archaic grammatical patterns.  My research, on the other hand, suggests that this is an overly convenient conclusion; analysis of Shunzei’s application of the term does not refer to just any archaic element—would the phrase “thou hast” in a modern English poem render it “mysterious and deep”?—but rather specifically to older texts with which the connection is not obvious.

The absence of an obvious and direct association with other texts is in contradistinction with another poetic technique of the same era known as honkadori. A crucial prescription for this compositional technique was to borrow more than one poetic segment (ku) from a source poem and incorporating it into your own poem. Moreover, the borrowing must be an obvious reference to a previous poem. As the leading poet of the early 13th century, Fujiwara Teika, noted in his poetic treatise, Maigetsushō, “[borrowing] should be done in such a way that it is clear that the older poem has been used.”   While all scholars of premodern Japanese literature recognize the distinction between yūgen and honkadori, there seems to be a misconception when analyzing their role in critical method. David Bialock indicates that Teika was “deeply committed to the concept of the text as a stable, fixed entity,” but then indicates that the Shinkokinshū “conceals a vertical depth reaching back or down into the intertextual space of the tradition, an intertextual space which it in fact generates out of its own textual practice.”  While I agree that Teika’s approach suggests a commitment to a “stable, fixed entity,” this seems to contradict his idea that the Shinkokinshū—the eighth Imperial Anthology of which Teika was one of the compilers—reached into an “intertextual space” which “generates out of its own textual practice.” His comment suggests that honkadori—with its clear relationship with older poems—was a form of intertextuality. This is, in my opinion, far from correct. Intertextuality as defined by Julia Kristeva or Roland Barthes promotes quite the opposite: the text is an unstable, unfixed entity.

Still, Bialock’s assertion is understandable to the degree that honkadori is intertextual in nature. A poem that incorporates this technique can technically have more than one meaning—the straight-forward meaning suggested by the original text itself and the alternative meanings rendered when the source poem is also taken into consideration. However, the fact that the prescription for honkadori requires that it be “clear that the older poem has been used” strips away any pretense to the instability of the text. This is not intertextuality. It is contextuality.

So ultimately, what this means is that I kind of departed from my original plan and began researching something else.