studies secrecy in japanese arts secret transmission as a mode of knowledge

8/10/2019 Studies Secrecy in Japanese Arts Secret Transmission as a Mode of Knowledge

1/6

The Society for Japanese Studies

Secrecy in Japanese Arts: "Secret Transmission" as a Mode of Knowledge by Maki IsakaMorinagaReview by: Terry KawashimaJournal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Winter, 2007), pp. 276-280Published by: The Society for Japanese StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25064711.

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2/6

276

Journal

of Japanese

Studies

33:1(2007)

tises,

accompanied

by

extremely

close

analyses

thatoften

quote

headnotes

and

other annotations

from

standard

printed

versions?material that

rightly

belongs

in theendnotes.

Despite

the

plenitude

of detail, it is hard to follow

along

without

having

the classical

Japanese

text

close

at

hand,

and the

quotes

come

from

so

many

different

points

inZeami's treatises that

contin

ually consulting

the

originals

is infeasible.

(Most

of

the

quotations

are

from

the authoritative volume

Zeami,

Zenchiku annotated

by

Omote

Akira and

Kat?

Sh?ichi

in

the series Nihon shis?

taikei;

citing

page

numbers

in the

main

text,

rather than in the

endnotes,

would have

helped.)

Thus the reader

is

often leftwithout

any

real

means

of

determining

whether

Quinn's

inter

pretations

(ormore often, thecomments ofOmote, Kat?, and other annota

tors)

are on

the mark.

Compounding

matters,

the

writing

often lacks vividness and

clarity.

Quinn

uses

the

passive

voice

too

much and tends

to

make

sentences

more

elaborate

or

convoluted than

they

need

be;

over

the

span

of

almost

500

pages,

the cumulative effect of such habits

on

the reader is indescribable.

The

publisher's description

of the

book,

printed

on

theback

cover,

says

that

Developing

Zeami is

eminently

readable

and accessible. It is

neither;

but,

in

fairness,

neither are the texts it examines.

Despite

a raft of

attempts,

we

still lack

authoritative,

intelligible English

versions

of Zeami's

writings

on

n?,

which

are a

prerequisite

to

a

comprehensive

study

of

them

in

English.

Undaunted,

Quinn

has

produced

a

competent

and

thoughtful study

that

su

persedes previous

attempts

to

explain

Zeami's

secrets.

Secrecy in Japanese Arts: Secret Transmission as a Mode of Knowledge.

By

Maki Isaka

Morinaga. Palgrave

Macmillan,

New

York,

2005.

x,

197

pages.

$65.00.

Reviewed

by

Terry Kawashima

Wesleyan

University

Maki IsakaMorinaga's book Secrecy inJapanese Arts examines thegenre

of

secret

teachings

(hiden,

among

other

terms)

that

serve

as

cornerstones

of

legitimacy

in

Japanese

artistic

traditions.

Through

readings

of three

main

texts,

each of

which

represents

a

different

era

and

art

form,

the author

ana

lyzes

what she calls the

logic

of esotericism :

thatwhich enables

the

very

notion

of

an

esoteric

tradition

to

have value and

to

continue

to

exist.

The

book

has

a

number

of

strengths.

It

begins by

challenging

the

common

per

ception

that esoteric

texts cannot

be understood

by

an

outsider

to

the

tradition, and instead argues that close textual readings of these texts can

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3/6

Review Section 277

provide

us

with

an

understanding

of how esotericism itself is

constructed

and

perpetuated.

Morinaga

asserts

thathiden's

status

as

a

fetishized

object

of secrecy isnot its sole

significance;

rather,thecontentof such texts?their

rhetorical

figurations?can

tell

us

a

great

deal about how the

logic

of

eso

tericism

operates.

She focuses

on

what

I

might

call

the

strategies

of

esoteri

cization:

that

is,

how

texts

achieve the

status

of esoteric

teachings,

and how

such

texts

shape, legitimize,

and

participate

in

themaintenance of the artis

tic traditions themselves.

The author iswell

versed in

critical

theory,

nd

the

book raises

provocative questions

regarding

the various

contingencies

involved in the

process

of

textual and

lineage production.

Due to thevaried scope of thebook, which considers secret teachings in

swordsmanship

and the

n?

theater

s

well

as

essays

in

modern

theater,

ori

naga's

work

can

be situated

in

several

different

scholarly

contexts.

In thefield

ofmartial

arts,

an area

thathas attractedmuch

popular

interest,

the book is

one

of

the

few

scholarly

works

that

squarely

addresses

the issue

of

transmis

sion,

along

with

past

scholarship

such

as

Cameron Hurst's

Armed Martial

Arts

of

Japan:

Swordsmanship

and

Archery

(Yale

University

Press,

1998).

In

the realm

of

the n?

theater,

the

study

that

comes

most

readily

to

mind

as

rele

vant is Eric C. Rath's recent book The Ethos ofNoh: Actors and Their Art

(Harvard

University

Asia

Center,

2004),

which also

includes

a

significant

discussion of

secret

teachings. Shelley

Fenno

Quinn's

Developing

Zeami:

The Noh

Actor's

Attunement in

ractice

(University

of

Hawai'i

Press,

2005)

is

another book that

investigates

Zeami's

writings

in

detail.

Morinaga's study

of themodern theater

pioneer

Osanai

Kaoru is

a

much-needed

one

thatwill

render this

figure

more

familiar.

In

addressing

themain issue of

secret trans

missions,

the book

successfully

builds

upon

and

productively critiques

Nishiyama Matsunosuke's analyses ofgei (arts) and the iemoto system.Mori

naga's

work thus

contributes

nicely

to

thisdiverse

body

of

past

scholarship

by

tying

together

the

different

traditions of

swordsmanship,

n?,

and modern

theaterunder the rubric of

secret

teachings.

This

book is also

notable for

its

deft

dismantling

of

Nihonjinron,

which has been

an

important

focus of

cri

tique

across

the

disciplines

in

the

past

several

years;

she shows that

certain

scholarly

works

on

hi

den have

participated

in

Nihonjinron

discourse

through

their

assumption

that

Japaneseness

constitutes

a

type

of

insider

category

for the esoteric arts.

The main

body

of

the book

begins

with

a

strong

analysis

of

Yagy?

Munemori's

Heich? kadensho

(1632),

a

hiden

about

swordsmanship.

Mori

naga

shows

that this

text

is

filled with markers of

secrecy:

both the

literal

words

(e.g.,

terms

that

mean

secret )

and

a

rhetorical reluctance

(a

stated

unwillingness

to

reveal further

nformation)

are

tactics thatwork

together

to

produce

the

effect

of esotericism.

What

these

texts

refuse

to

speak

about

tend

to

be

concrete

instructions

regarding

an

art's

practice;

the

author

argues

that this targeted concealment was necessary in order for a particular fam



4/6

278 Journal

of Japanese

Studies

33:1(2007)

ily

(ie)

to

monopolize knowledge

about

an

art

and thus control its

practice

for

generations

to

come,

and that the

discourse

of

concealment

itself

ele

vated the

very

notion of

secrecy

to a

privileged

status. In

turn,

this exalted

status

of

secrecy

insured that followers

of

the

art

would observe

the

path

of

a

correct,

extratextual

education

monitored

strictly y

the

rightful

eirs

of

the

tradition,

because

the followers' desire

for the ultimate

secrets

of

mas

tery

has been cultivated

by

the

overall

privileging

of

secrecy

as

thatwhich

contains

something powerful

and desirable.

Morinaga

then

turns

to

Zeami's famous

treatise,

F?shikaden

(early

fifteenth

century),

in

order

to

examine

how

textual

representations

of

trans

mission

attempt

to establish

legitimacy.

The author illustrates that the

rhetorical

technique

of

hearsay effectively

forges

a

lineage

between the

writer of the esoteric

text

and

an

imagined,

authoritative

past,

and

proceeds

to

a

discussion

of criteria

for

proper

lineage

and

talent,

concepts

that

re

crucial

to

the

maintenance

of the artistic

monopoly

that is

generated

as a re

sult of

efforts such

as

these

hearsay strategies

in

secret

teachings.

Two

as

pects

of this

chapter

detract from

an

otherwise effective

argument.

First,

I

am

not

convinced

by

the

assumption

that

writing

represents

a

threat

to

the

continuity

of a tradition in that it can

mark,

ifnot cause, a certain break,

be it

an

addition,

revision, omission,

or

creation

(p.

46),

as

such

a

statement

turns

blind

eye

to

the

possibility

that ll discursive

productions

render such

disruptions possible.

Second,

I

am

not

certain

that the

terms

creativity

(which

is

differentiated

from

originality )

and

traditionality

do

justice

to

the

interesting

theorizations

found in this

chapter;

instead,

I

might

suggest

something

like textual

production

and

lineage production,

respectively,

as

possible

alternatives

that

would

clarify

what is

being

discussed.

In thenext chapter, the focus shiftsto theworkings of secrecy in eso

teric

teachings;

the author

begins by

addressing

the

seemingly puzzling

phe

nomenon

that

many

esoteric

texts

are,

in

fact,

practically

open

secrets

to

one

degree

or

another,

in that

they

can

be

read

by

more

than

just

the

insiders

to

a

tradition.

Morinaga

compares

certain Zen

Buddhist

texts

and

practices

with hiden

in

order

to

examine

in

depth

the

seeming

distrust of

language

that

appears

to

be

exhibited

in

such

writings.

She

concludes

that

writing

is

not

ac

tually

devalued,

but

rather,

that

proper

transmission

is

touted

as

the

key

to

unlocking the truepotential of a secretwritten teaching?this iswhy the

leakage

of

a

hiden does

not

necessarily

pose

a

threat

to

the

logic

of

esoteri

cism.

She

argues

that

secrecy

should

therefore

e

conceptualized

as a

tex

tual

performance

that

gives

weight

to

the

text

itself.

It

is

interesting

that the

very

idea of

secret

teachings

necessitates

a

lack?that

is,

it

seems

that hiden

must

be

missing

its

supplements

(cultivation,

for

example)

in

order

to

legit

imize itself

and the

tradition

it

seeks

to

establish;

a

hiden

by

definition

might

be

characterized

as

a

forever

incomplete

yet

crucial

piece

in the

project

of lineage formation.



5/6

Review Section

279

The

final

chapter

is

a

discussion of the

writings

of

Osanai

Kaoru,

a

major

early

figure

in the

shingeki

(New Theater)

movement

in the

early

twentieth

century.Morinaga shows thatalthoughOsanai's writings exist outside of the

esoteric

framework,

his

conceptualizations

effectively

subvert the

very

as

sumptions

upon

which

the

logic

of esotericism

rests.

First,

she

illustrates

that

the

shingeki

aesthetics

of

amateurity,

which

privileges

the

nonestab

lishment,

outsider

status

of

actors,

is

one

that

goes

against

esotericism's fun

damental faith

in the

position

of

the insider

to

a

particular

tradition.

Second,

the

author

investigates

what she

calls translationism ?a

prioritization

of

translations

that

do

not

attempt

to

mold

the

original language

into the

con

ventions of the target language, and a valorization of translation strategies

in

which

the latter

s

allowed

to

be

radically

affected

by

the

former,

resulting

in

a

final

product

that

stands

out

as

being

differentfrom

both the

original

and

the

norms

of the

target language?as

a

movement

that

challenges

the

logic

of

esotericism.

She

asserts

that

esotericism

works

hard

to

blur the dis

tinctionbetween

the

present

and

the

past,

the

self

and

other: since

each

heir

to

the

tradition

must

pose

as

being

one

with the

unbroken,

legitimate

lineage

of

a

particular

artistic

practice,

such dichotomies

are

carefully

avoided.

In

contrast, the author states, translationism emphasizes thedifference be

tween

translation

and

the

original,

the

self

and

other,

and thus

raises

a

rad

ical alternative

to

the

esotericist

paradigm.

The

unexpected juxtaposition

of

a

shingeki

dramatist with

well-known

hiden writers

in

the fields of

swords

manship

and

n?

yields

this fresh and

interesting

onclusion.

There

are some

questions

that remain about

this

chapter,

however.

For

ex

ample,

the

uthor

acknowledges

that

the

logic

of

esotericism

still

remained

credible in the form of the

iemoto

system

in

Osanai's

era

and

continues

to

do

so even today.She ends thechapter by statingthat er analysis ofOsanai's dis

course

should

be

helpful

to

future

studies of

iemoto-based

arts,

which

are

be

yond

the

scope

of

thisbook

(p.

136).

It

seems,

however,

that discussion of

the

impact

of the

destabilizing

effects of Osanai's

writings

is

precisely

what

would be

interesting

here;

without

it,

the

chapter

remains

a

series of

readings

that

highlight

the

potential

implications

in

Osanai's

texts.

Clearly,

it

would be

beyond

the

scope

of

the

book

to

survey

the

entire

field

of

iemoto-based

arts,

but

this

chaptermight

have benefited from

a

complementary

chapter

thatfo

cused on a particularmodern-era artistic tradition thatoperated on some ver

sion

of

the

logic

of

esotericism

yet

had

discursive

slippages

that

may

be

attributable

to

challenges posed

by

the likes of

Osanai's

texts.

Without this

kind of

anchoring,

the

fifth

chapter

feels

a

littledetached from the

preceding

chapters.

More

generally,

there

are some

aspects

of

the

book

that

might

have

been

better

approached differently.

or

example,

there

seems

to

be

an

excessive

concern

with

taxonomy;

virtually

every

discussion involves

an

enumeration

of types/categories that are unnecessarily difficult to follow (consistently



6/6

280

Journal

of

Japanese

Studies

33:1(2007)

referring

to

an

analytical

framework

by

name

would be

more

effective than

calling

it

Type

3,

for

instance).

The

temporal

characterization of the de

velopment

of secret

teachings

represents

another

potentially

problematic

area.

In the

introductory chapter,

the

author

delineates

a

periodization

narrative

for the

genre:

formative

( prehistory

and

diffusion

stages),

cli

mactic

( establishment

and

apex stages),

and

decline

( survival

stage).

Words such

as

ripen

and

past

its

prime

are

used

to

describe these

sup

posedly

distinct,

knowable

phases

of

hiden

history.

This kind of

neat

rise

and-fall schematization

clashes

with the author's

otherwise

sophisticated

understanding

of critical

theory.

Since the

rest

of

the

book

does

not

return

to the

question

of

periodization

in

any

direct

manner,

omitting

thisdiscus

sion

would

not

only

leave other

arguments

intact,

but would

have made

the

author's

significant

contributions

more

evident.

Finally,

the

writing style

would

have benefited from closer attention

by

the book's editor. There

are

a

number

of

confusing

word

choices,

and the

overuse

of extended

parentheti

cal

comments

made this reader wonder whether

some

of them

might

not

be

more

appropriate

as

endnotes.

Morinaga's

book

encourages

us

to

think

deeply

about the

multiple

ways

inwhich

knowledge

is crafted and maintained. The author

argues

com

pellingly

that

we

must

pay

attention

to

the

detailed

dynamic

contours

of

the

production, performance, attempted

transmission,

and motivated

reception

of

knowledge

in

order

to

understand

its

workings

in

any

context.

Notes

from Toyota-Land:

An American

Engineer

in

Japan. By

Darius

Mehri. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 2005. xviii, 231 pages. $26.00.

Reviewed

by

Mark Fruin

San

Jose

State

University

Darius

Mehri's Notes

from Toyota-Land

is

a

colorful,

diary-like

account

of

the

personal

and

working

lives

of

numerous

employees?regular

and

tem

porary,

Japanese

and

non-Japanese?at

a

Toyota

Motor affiliate somewhere

in

Japan during

the

1990s.

Anyone

thinking

about

working

for

a

Japanese

firm

in

Japan

or overseas

should read this

book,

especially

since insider

ac

counts

of

working-for-the-Japanese,

once

fairly

common,

have all but

dis

appeared

in

recent

years.

The

subtitle,

An American

Engineer

in

Japan,

coupled

with

the refer

ence

to

Toyota

in

the

title

give

the

impression

that readers

will learn

a

lot

about

Toyota.

The

author,

in

fact,

claims

that

his

account

offers

a

detailed

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