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Bibliographic Data: Thal, Sarah. Rearranging the Landscape of the Gods: The Politics of a Pilgrimage Site in Japan, 1573-1912. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Main Argument: Thal notes at least four difficulties in defining the nature of kami (their particularity, their plasticity, their close association with other types of powerful beings, and the difficulty of applying Western religious concepts to Japanese phenomena), using the sacred site of Mt. Zôzu on Shikoku (beter known as Kotohira or Konpira) to argue that in the early modern period "not only priests but also politicians, pilgrims, entrepreneurs and officials shaped the complex structure of what would become modern Shinto: a purportedly timeless, unchanging, native tradition that in fact emerged from the pressures of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries" (09-10).
( Rearranging the landscape of the gods )
Critical assessment: This is a strong, excellent study that, through its tight focus on Kotohira, manages to reveal telling points about the Japanese experience of the category that we call "religion" through the Edo period and into the early Meiji era. That said, I did get tired of how absolutely everything in the three centuries Thal covers dramatically reshapes Kotohira (which does lead to the question: how does one convey dynamism without going too far into hyperbole?).
That said, this site history does provide some fascinating corrections to more generalized narratives of the Meiji period and of the relationship between state Shinto and the state, as well as being engaging in its own right, particularly in the chapters after 1868. Thal succeeds well in conveying through thick description the inextricably intertwined and combinatory nature of religion in Japan before the Meiji. I appreciated the reminder her book offered that institutions must always successfully negotiate the political, social, and economic contexts around them for their survival; in particular I thought her account of the Kotohira priests' maneuvering around and through the early Meiji state's policy shilly-shallying was very nicely illustrative of the kinks that are almost always flattened in more general histories of the period, even if the adaptability and functional ambiguity of religion and worship, respectively, in Japan, is nothing new (for which see Karen Smyers' excellent The Fox and the Jewel). Of especial note and fascination is her revealing just how much of the actual lived practice of state Shinto was created, not in a top-down manner by priests or officials, but in response to and with the active participation of commoners, from undifferentiated laity to businesspeople to potential patrons.
Further reading: Karen Smyers, The Fox and the Jewel; Michael Dylan Foster, Pandemonium and Parade; Helen Hardacre, Shintô and the state, 1868-1988
Meta notes: It's interesting to see this book in the Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute series, which is explicitly devoted to "significant new research on modern and contemporary East Asia." Also, I don't enjoy the multitude of short chapters; for my taste, I'd rather have longer, tighter ones.
I visited Kotohira this summer (it was deathly hot), and it's interesting to go back over this book in light of that perspective. Thal is right that for most people the primary experience of the shrine is now as a series of steps (with a side of udon and sweet potato soft cream, in my case). You can still see the palimpsest of history in the town and the shrine, and visiting Kotohira with Thal's book in mind enriches the experience by making the layers of that palimpsest legible.
Our department offered Thal a job in 2007, and I wish she'd taken it.
Main Argument: Thal notes at least four difficulties in defining the nature of kami (their particularity, their plasticity, their close association with other types of powerful beings, and the difficulty of applying Western religious concepts to Japanese phenomena), using the sacred site of Mt. Zôzu on Shikoku (beter known as Kotohira or Konpira) to argue that in the early modern period "not only priests but also politicians, pilgrims, entrepreneurs and officials shaped the complex structure of what would become modern Shinto: a purportedly timeless, unchanging, native tradition that in fact emerged from the pressures of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries" (09-10).
( Rearranging the landscape of the gods )Critical assessment: This is a strong, excellent study that, through its tight focus on Kotohira, manages to reveal telling points about the Japanese experience of the category that we call "religion" through the Edo period and into the early Meiji era. That said, I did get tired of how absolutely everything in the three centuries Thal covers dramatically reshapes Kotohira (which does lead to the question: how does one convey dynamism without going too far into hyperbole?).
That said, this site history does provide some fascinating corrections to more generalized narratives of the Meiji period and of the relationship between state Shinto and the state, as well as being engaging in its own right, particularly in the chapters after 1868. Thal succeeds well in conveying through thick description the inextricably intertwined and combinatory nature of religion in Japan before the Meiji. I appreciated the reminder her book offered that institutions must always successfully negotiate the political, social, and economic contexts around them for their survival; in particular I thought her account of the Kotohira priests' maneuvering around and through the early Meiji state's policy shilly-shallying was very nicely illustrative of the kinks that are almost always flattened in more general histories of the period, even if the adaptability and functional ambiguity of religion and worship, respectively, in Japan, is nothing new (for which see Karen Smyers' excellent The Fox and the Jewel). Of especial note and fascination is her revealing just how much of the actual lived practice of state Shinto was created, not in a top-down manner by priests or officials, but in response to and with the active participation of commoners, from undifferentiated laity to businesspeople to potential patrons.
Further reading: Karen Smyers, The Fox and the Jewel; Michael Dylan Foster, Pandemonium and Parade; Helen Hardacre, Shintô and the state, 1868-1988
Meta notes: It's interesting to see this book in the Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute series, which is explicitly devoted to "significant new research on modern and contemporary East Asia." Also, I don't enjoy the multitude of short chapters; for my taste, I'd rather have longer, tighter ones.
I visited Kotohira this summer (it was deathly hot), and it's interesting to go back over this book in light of that perspective. Thal is right that for most people the primary experience of the shrine is now as a series of steps (with a side of udon and sweet potato soft cream, in my case). You can still see the palimpsest of history in the town and the shrine, and visiting Kotohira with Thal's book in mind enriches the experience by making the layers of that palimpsest legible.
Our department offered Thal a job in 2007, and I wish she'd taken it.
