SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

Workshop: Shunga in its Social and Cultural Context

Workshop Alert (workshop rescheduled)

Virtually none of the overseas participants can attend the workshop due to the disruption of flights caused by the volcanic ash cloud.

We have therefore restructured the two-day event into a one-day workshop taking place on Friday, 23 April.  Please note that no workshop will take place on Thursday, 22 April.  

We hope to reschedule the overseas participants' talks later in the year for another one-day event.  Further details will be confirmed in due course.

We apologise for any inconvenience but hope that you understand that we are doing the best we can in a difficult situation.

Programme - Friday, 23 April 2010

All presentations in English unless otherwise noted.

Further details: events@soas.ac.uk and Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4892/3

Introduction
Programme
Registration/Enquiries

Introduction

This workshop is part of the three-year Research Project begun in May 2009 on Shunga Japanese Erotic Art, supported by a grant from the Leverhulme Trust, run jointly by SOAS, the British Museum, the International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto and Ritsumeikan University.

This third workshop follows the inaugural meeting held on 6 August 2009 in London to launch the project and a second meeting at Ritsumeikan in Kyoto 4-5 December 2009, which had 16 presentations and was accompanied by an exhibition of shunga at Ritsumeikan. 

Details of this symposium, ‘Shunga Books and Prints in Context’, and the full web exhibition are available online: Exhibition and Symposium 

Shunga (art and literature that explicitly portrays sex) is pornography in at least the sense that shunga publications were banned by the Tokugawa government from as early as the 17th century. The production of explicitly erotic books, prints and paintings, however, continued throughout the Edo period into the modern era with only a few intermittent years of strict censorship. After the Kyôhô censorship edict of 1722, shunga books and prints went ‘underground’ in the sense of being illegal publications that did not contain the details of author/artist, publisher and date required by the authorities. We are only gradually discovering how many works have survived because of the modern taboo on shunga in Japan, which has meant that no libraries or museums openly collected shunga until very recently. Therefore most works are in private collections. Estimates suggest that there are as many as 2000 illustrated shunga books, and many more prints and paintings. Many famous artists including many from schools other than ukiyo-e, composed shunga paintings, books and prints. Research on shunga has also until recently been restricted by the modern taboo cast over this genre. 

The aim of the project is to examine works in detail, including the extensive text in the books and prints, asking questions such as:

• How do these works relate to non-shunga genres?
• Are the works pornography in any of the meanings of this term?
• Who were the audience for these works?
• Why was the production and reception of shunga so extensive in Japan
• Were the works created only for light entertainment only?
• Do any shunga aim to express more significant artistic or literary meaning?
• Is the world of sex presented in shunga simply a male fantasy?
• Were women an audience for shunga?

The workshops will lead to publications and will support the preparations for an exhibition at the British Museum.

Programme

Enquiries

Andrew Gerstle, ag4@soas.ac.uk