EALC 24422 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Musashi Province, Scientific Method, Orbital Inclination
20 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Yonemoto Reading
- Scholars, cartographers, and geographers like Sekisui used prose along with the
scientific method to not only be accurate in describing the land, but to also give it
dimension. A sense of culture.
Sekisui
- “Employed many rhetorical skills available to them” (71)
- “He offers his own interpretation of the poems at the site” (72) I wonder about these logs
being completely objective, then--it looks like the poetic style might contain strong biases
from its authors
- Wanted to clearly talk about foreign cultures that were clear to audiences back home
(73?).
- Sekisui talks poetically about Japan’s history; he talks more empirically about foreign,
new knowledge
- Slave: other. Dark-skinned, devil + slave = characters used to describe (76)
- No comment on their personal traits, names, etc. Just appearance
- Dehumanizing--places them on the same level as the animals in the household
- Definitely see strong biases in these accounts based on the amount of description,
language used, etc to describe people of higher rank, lighter skin, etc.
- Sekisui liked the Chinese a lot--added the Chinese pronunciation to the
Japanese names to show his respect (77)
- Sekisui relationship w the Chinese
- Complicated
- Admired poetry, disdained them slightly because Japanese scholars were
supposed to do that
- Imaginary
- Before actually going out and meeting the Chinese, to Sekisui, they were this
imaginary, idealized version of men. It almost seems like his fantasy has been
broken when he eventually makes contact with them. Think this is interesting
because it starts to show some of the realities when people travel and explore
other lands--myths and stories and imagination becomes fact, whether we like it
or not, and seems to shape the traveler’s perspective even more.
Koshoken
- About
- Traveled all over Japan
- Was appointed to execute a geographical survey of Musashi Province
- Got samurai status
- He is an example of how learning and practicing geography can connect to government
work and employment
- Used a lot of sarcasm and judgement in his texts
- STRONGLY believed in direct observation and factual accounting
- “If you don’t (factually) know your own country, you can’t be trusted to describe
far off lands either” (82)
Document Summary
Scholars, cartographers, and geographers like sekisui used prose along with the scientific method to not only be accurate in describing the land, but to also give it dimension. Employed many rhetorical skills available to them (71) He offers his own interpretation of the poems at the site (72) i wonder about these logs being completely objective, then--it looks like the poetic style might contain strong biases from its authors. Wanted to clearly talk about foreign cultures that were clear to audiences back home. Sekisui talks poetically about japan"s history; he talks more empirically about foreign, (73? new knowledge. Dark-skinned, devil + slave = characters used to describe (76) No comment on their personal traits, names, etc. Dehumanizing--places them on the same level as the animals in the household. Definitely see strong biases in these accounts based on the amount of description, language used, etc to describe people of higher rank, lighter skin, etc.
