About the Speaker:
Akiko Walley received her AM in Regional Studies East Asia and PhD in Art History from Harvard University. She specializes in Japanese Buddhist art of the seventh and eighth centuries. Buddhism is the bedrock of every aspect of Japanese lives even today. Walley focuses on the incipient period of Japanese Buddhism to reconsider the idea of “transmission” (denrai). She is the author of Constructing the Dharma King: The Hōryūji Shaka Triad and the Birth of the Prince Shōtoku Cult (Japanese Visual Culture Series, vol. 15; Leiden: Brill, 2015). Her work has been published in journals including Ars Orientalis, Archives of Asian Art, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Artibus Asiae, Religions, and International Journal of Comic Art. Walley's current book-length project investigates early Buddhist relic devotion in Japan in a trans-Asian context, focusing on the performative nature of Buddhist reliquaries. She also has secondary and tertiary research interests in topics such as: Edo-period (1615-1868) literati painting; Buddhist scriptures and the materiality of East Asian calligraphy; Edo-period luxurious prints (surimono); Contemporary prints, particularly by Kusama Yayoi; and manga modes of expression and the impact of onomatopoeia on animation sound effects.
Walley teaches a wide range of courses on Japanese art from prehistoric to contemporary times. Recent upper-division themed courses she has offered include: 6th-8th Century East Asian Buddhist Networks; Nirvana; Japanese Art and Christianity; Eccentrics in Japanese Art; Global Japan; War and Japanese Art; Contemporary Japanese Prints; and History of Manga. She has advised graduate students interested in an array of topics from Heian-period Buddhist sculpture, early modern woodblock prints and painting, underground Christian artifacts, to Araki Nobuyoshi’s photography. (https://design.uoregon.edu/directory/history-of-art-architecture-faculty/all/awalley)
About the Talk:
In the world of collecting, a name can be everything. This presentation investigates a boom for collecting fragmented calligraphy that swept across the social strata in early-modern Japan (1600-1868). A collector arranged the prized calligraphy pieces into an album called tekagami (a mirror of handwriting) according to the presumed author. The identification of the calligrapher—which was often false in today’s understanding of authentication—rejuvenated and repackaged a decontextualized (and sometimes even underwhelming) piece of writing as collectible. Through select case studies, I will unfold the reasonings behind some of the most curious or egregious misidentifications and argue for the role the calligraphy fragments played in affirming, establishing, or reshaping, the shared imagination of cultural celebrities of the past in the early-modern minds.