Furusato: 'Home' at the Nexus of History, Art, Society, and Self

Furusato (home, hometown, and/or place of origin) is a revered and idealized concept in Japan. On an individual level, it plays a central role in personal identity; in a broader social and cultural milieu, it is constitutive of a sense of nostalgia for a romanticized and impossible past; and in the political and legal realms, it connects with ideas of Japaneseness and the construction of foreign others. While the specific forms it takes in context give the idea of furusato a Japanese veneer, however, it in fact has close analogues in ideas of ‘home’ and ‘origin’ around the world. This volume collects essays exploring furusato and its cognates in other languages and regions. 14 scholars from Japan and Europe employ a diverse array of disciplinary tools, drawing from history, philosophy, literature, anthropology, religious studies, and art history, to map out the contours of home and elucidate the meanings contained within it. Table of Contents Editors’ Preface Furusato in Japanese Buddhism as a spiritual place PART I FURUSATO IN IMAGE AND IMAGINATION Dutch art theory at home in an abridged history of Gerard de Lairesse’s Groot Schilderboek’s presence in Japan and its influence on Japanese Art The Great East Japan Earthquake and Furusato/Home. Towards furusato as a Sacred Space The Rediscovery of Furusato and the Inheritance of A Case Study of Yamashiro, Tokushima Prefecture PART II BEING AT HOME The Place and the Heidegger, Matsuo Bashō, and Art as Being-at-Home Building a Home in the Belonging in the Wilderness Transience and the Promise of Reconceptualising Homelessness through Heidegger and Nietzsche PART III FURUSATO ACROSS SPACE Qiaoxiang and A Comparative Study of Homes of Overseas Chinese and Japanese Emigrants Escaping home, Finding The Search for Identity in Recreational Travel in the Late Edo Period From Ibaraki to Edo/ How the Earthquake Catfish Found a New Home in the Capital PART IV FURUSATO IN LITERATURE Furusato in the first Japanese translation of the Song of Roland by Ban Takeo “Homeland” in the Discourses of Collective Identity of the Early 19th Century in Japan and Central Europe Reasoning about Furusato as the Origin of Life (生命) and Spirit (心) Modern Yucatec Mayan Literature and the Concept of Home, Mayab