The 18th Study of Design Fundamentals Seminar: The Aesthetics of Sugawara no Michizane: Literature as Object, Objects as Literature

Kyushu University Faculty of Design explores the fundamental methodology of design for integrating a wide range of designs. We were pleased to invite Niels van der Salm MA of Leiden University, the Netherlands to share with us his ideas and experiences about “The Aesthetics of Sugawara no Michizane: Literature as Object, Objects as Literature”. This online talk was in Japanese and the free discussion was in either Japanese or English.

[Topic]

Whether because of its easy reproducibility or because of the fluidity of its medium, “literature” has been considered as an immaterial art form essentially different from other forms of art at least since the modern period. Recent trends in literary studies, including Japanese literature, however, point towards new and fruitful approaches to literary compositions as physical objects. Taking my cue from these approaches, in this lecture I will examine the shifting aesthetic appreciations, ancient and modern, of one such category of “objects,” the literary compositions of Heian courtier Sugawara no Michizane (845-903).

[Speaker]

Niels van der Salm, from the Netherlands, is Japanese language instructor at Leiden University. Exchange student at Kyushu University, 2012-2013. Research student at Tohoku University, 2015-2016. MA degrees in Classics and Japanese Studies, Leiden University, 2018. Research interests include the world of early Heian kanshi and kanbun literatures and their modern reception. Publications include “Michizane’s Other Exile? Biographies of Sugawara no Michizane and the Praxis of Heian Sinitic Poetry” (Kyushu University’s JAH-Q Journal, to appear).

[Date]

January 28th, 2021: Opens at 16:00 p.m, performance starts at 16:30 p.m. in Japan Time.

[Host]
Kyushu University Faculty of Design

[Co-host]
School of Design, Design Futures Course