The Culture of Copying in Japan Critical and Historical Perspectives [Hardcover]

This book challenges the perception of Japan as a copying culture through a series of detailed ethnographic and historical case studies.

It addresses a question about why the West has had such a fascination for the adeptness with which the Japanese apparently assimilate all things foreign and at the same time such a fear of their skill at artificially remaking and automating the world around them. Countering the idea of a Japan that deviously or ingenuously copies others, it elucidates the history of creative exchanges with the outside world and the particular myths, philosophies and concepts which are emblematic of the origins and originality of copying in Japan. The volume demonstrates the diversity and creativity of copying in the Japanese context through the translation of a series of otherwise loosely related ideas and concepts into objects, images, texts and practices of reproduction, which include: shamanic theatre, puppetry, tea utensils, Kyoto town houses, architectural models, genres of painting, calligraphy, and poetry, sample food displays, and the fashion and car industries.

Series Editors Preface Joy Hendry.  Introduction Rupert Cox  Section 1: Original Encounters  1. Body to Body Transmission: The Copying Tradition of Kagura Performance Irit Averbuch  2. A Spectrum of Copies: Ritual Puppetry in Japan Jane Marie Law  3. Copying in Japanese Magazines: Unashamed Copiers Keiko Tanaka  Section 2: Arts of Citation  4. The Originality of the Copy: Mimesis and Subversion in Hanegawa Toeis Chosenjin Ukie Ronald Toby  5. Copy to Convert: Jesuits Missionary Practice in Japan Alexandra Curvelo  6. Back to the Fundamentals: Reproducing Rikyu and Chojiro in Japanese Tea Culturelc*