Songs of loss and light: Poetry performances as memorial services within a Japanese Buddhist context
27th November: 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm GMT
Jishuzan Zuisenji ryaku engi, with kind permission of Zuisenji
In this seminar, Dr Pia Jolliffe offers an introduction to Japanese waka poems and discuss their use for memorial services at the Buddhist Pure Land temple Zuisenji in Kyoto. Zuisenji was set up in 1611 to commemorate and narrate the history of the children and female household members of Toyotomi Hidetsugu (1568-1595) who all were executed for political reasons on the site of the current temple on the second day of the eighth month in 1595. The waka poems presented in the talk are all farewell poems (jisei no uta) composed by individual girls and women before their execution.
Dr Jolliffe will share about her personal encounter with these poems at Zuisenji where she has been doing historical research since 2023. This will be followed by some words on the poems’ content which reflects female believers’ faith in Pure Land doctrine of salvation as well as their adaptations of these teachings to their own lived situations. The seminar then shifts to a recording of a 2024 live performance of the farewell poems within the main hall of the temple and Dr Jolliffe’s own recitations from her English translations of these poems.
Dr Pia Jolliffe (Blackfriars Hall) will host this event between 2 and 3.30pm. This event is open to everyone and will take place in the the Aula of Blackfriars Hall.
Venue: Blackfriars Hall -
St Giles
Oxford,
OX1 3LY
United Kingdom
Contact:
Centre for Theology and the Arts
https://www.bfriars.ox.ac.uk/research/theology-and-arts/