MIMESISINTERNATIONAL		HASEKURA LEAGUE INTERCULTURAL STUDIES EDITIONS

n. 4

Editorial Board
Raffaele Milani (University of Bologna), Rolando Minuti (University of Florence), Ikuko Sagiyama(University of Florence), Andreas Niehaus (Ghent University), Judit Arokay (Heidelberg University),
Harald Fuess (Heidelberg University), Ivo Smits (Leiden University), Franco Mazzei (University ofNaples “L’Orientale”), Giangiorgio Pasqualotto (University of Padua), Matilde Mastrangelo (Sapienza
University of Rome), Glenn Hook (University of Sheffield), Ozaki Akihiro 尾崎彰宏 (Tohoku University),Nagaoka Ryūsaku 長岡龍作 (Tohoku University), Satō Hiroo 佐藤弘夫 (Tohoku University), SatōYoshimichi 佐藤嘉倫 (Tohoku University), Takahashi Akinori 高橋章則 (Tohoku University),
Paul Ziche (Utrecht University), Bonaventura Ruperti (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice), Georg Stenger(University of Vienna)

FURUSATO‘Home’ at the Nexus of History, Art,Society, and Self
Edited byChristopher Craig, Enrico Fongaro, Aldo Tollini

MIMESISINTERNATIONALThis book has been subjected to a peer review process.

© 2020 – Mimesis International – Milan
www.mimesisinternational.com
e-mail: info@mimesisinternational.com
Isbn: 9788869772771
Book series: Hasekura League Intercultural Studies Editions, n. 4
© MIM Edizioni Srl
P.I. C.F. 02419370305

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Editors’ Preface		

7

Furusato in Japanese Buddhism as a spiritual place		

11

Aldo Tollini

PART IFURUSATO IN IMAGE AND IMAGINATION
Dutch art theory at home in Japan: an abridged historyof Gerard de Lairesse’s Groot Schilderboek’s presence
in Japan and its influence on Japanese Art		

27

The Great East Japan Earthquake and Furusato/Home.
Towards furusato as a Sacred Space		

45

The Rediscovery of Furusato and the Inheritance of Folklore:
A Case Study of Yamashiro, Tokushima Prefecture		

59

Tijana ŽakulaOzaki Akihiro

Myōki Shinobu

PART II
BEING AT HOME
The Place and the Way: Heidegger, Matsuo Bashō,and Art as Being-at-Home		

75

Building a Home in the World: Belonging in the Wilderness		

89

Marcello Ghilardi

Gerard van der ReeTransience and the Promise of Home: ReconceptualisingHomelessness through Heidegger and Nietzsche		

Lukas Daniel Peter

115

PART III
FURUSATO ACROSS SPACE
Qiaoxiang and Furusato: A Comparative Study of Homes ofOverseas Chinese and Japanese Emigrants		

139

Escaping home, Finding Home: The Search for Identity in
Recreational Travel in the Late Edo Period		

153

From Ibaraki to Edo/Tokyo: How the Earthquake Catfish
Found a New Home in the Capital		

169

Kawaguchi Yukihiro

Sonia Favi

Davide Bitti

PART IV
FURUSATO IN LITERATURE
Furusato in the first Japanese translation of the Song ofRoland by Ban Takeo		

183“Homeland” in the Discourses of Collective Identity ofthe Early 19th Century in Japan and Central Europe		

195

Kuroiwa Taku

Mária Ildikó Farkas

Reasoning about Furusato as the Origin of Life (生命) and Spirit (心) 215

Zakota Yutaka

Modern Yucatec Mayan Literature and the Concept of Home, Mayab		 227

Yoshida Shigeto

EDITORS’ PREFACE

This volume is a collection of essays based on papers
presented at the Hasekura League International Symposium heldon 15-16 November 2018 at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.
The title of the conference was “Furusato: ‘Home’ at the Nexusof Politics, History, Art, Society, and Self”, and a group ofEuropean, Japanese, and North American scholars assembled toconsider the theme from a diverse array of academic approaches.
Setting out from the multifaceted Japanese concept of ‘furusato’(written variously as 故郷, ふるさと, or 古里 and translatable as
home, hometown, or place of origin), participants identified andruminated upon both its forms in Japan and related ideas in theoutside world.
The papers included in the current book are divided into 4
major sections. After an introductory essay by Aldo Tollini
that explores the place of furusato in Buddhism and Buddhist
enlightenment, the first section is concerned with Furusato in
Image and Imagination. Tijana Žakula presents an account of thetransportation of Dutch art theory from Europe to Asia and theprocesses by which it found a home in Japan (Chapter 1), Ozaki
Akihiro’s essay focuses on the imagination and understandingof furusato as an essential element of disaster recovery (Chapter2), and Myōki Shinobu offers a look at one community’s
mobilization of its unique folklore to promote local revitalization(Chapter 3). Section 2 is entitled Being at Home and includes anessay examining poetry and philosophy in the search for a more
inclusive form of furusato by Marcello Ghilardi (Chapter 4),
another considering vastly different genres of writing to find a8Furusato

philosophical basis to escape feelings of alienation by Gerard vander Ree (Chapter 5), and a third exploring ideas of homelessness
in the works of Martin Heidegger and Friedrich Nietzsche byLukas Daniel Peter (Chapter 6). The third section, devoted toideas of Furusato across Space, includes an anthropological studyby Kawaguchi Yukihiro of collective identity among populationsof Chinese and Japanese emigrants resident overseas (Chapter7), an analysis by Sonia Favi of efforts to escape furusato among
domestic travelers in early modern Japan (Chapter 8), anda discussion by Davide Bitti of the migration of the mythicalearthquake catfish from its original hometown to the city of Edo
after the 1855 Ansei Earthquake (Chapter 9). The four chapters ofthe final section are comprised of Kuroiwa Taku’s investigation
into the revealing nature of the use of the term “furusato” in thefirst Japanese translation of the Song of Roland (Chapter 10),
Mária Ildikó Farkas’ survey of the romanticization of home inthe development of national consciousness in Japan and CentralEurope (Chapter 11), Zakota Yutaka’s exploration of furusato asa means of connecting past and present in literature from Europeand Japan (Chapter 12), and Yoshida Shigeru’s examination of
the character and importance of homeland in indigenous Mayan
literature (Chapter 13).
What emerges in this diverse array of studies is a questing
for and testing of ideas of home whose aggregate supplements
the insights offered by the works it contains. Several subthemes
weave through and between the individual chapters and acrossthe four sections, giving a shape to the concept of furusato
and highlighting both expected and surprising aspects of theconcept. The original call for papers issued in connection with
the Venice symposium identified the subthemes of collective
pasts, identity, nationalism, and nostalgia, and the chaptersin the present volume take these up and develop them. Theshared past as a form of furusato is discussed in connection
with local folklore in contemporary Japan (Chapter 3), among
populations of Chinese and Japanese ex-pats (Chapter 7), and in
the preservation of indigenous identity in Mexico (Chapter 13).

Editors’ Preface

9

The derivation of personal and collective identity from furusato
links considerations of post-disaster recovery (Chapter 2) withsatiric imagery in early mass media (Chapter 9). Nationalism
and national membership connect early modern Japanese travel(Chapter 8) with poetic expressions of patriotism (Chapter 11).
And nostalgia represents a thread running through the whole ofthe book.
Less anticipated were themes that often seem at first sightcontrary to the idea of furusato. Examinations of homelessness
and alienation expose the reverse side of furusato and raisequestions about the limitations of standard ideas of home
(Introduction and Chapters 5 and 6), the impermanence andmobility of furusato challenge key assumptions connected to it(Chapters 1, 8, and 9), and considerations about the essentializing,
ahistorical, and contingent nature of home (Chapters 7, 10, and12) reveal some of its negative aspects.
Taken as a whole, the works collected in this volume presentan ambitious and enlightening first foray into an interdisciplinary
and multi-regional exploration of the concept of furusato. Readers
are encouraged to take the chapters on their own terms and toread across them in pursuit of shared concerns and themes. It is
the hope of the editors that the book will inspire further research
into and treatment of furusato as a means of exploring ideas ofhome, origin, and belonging.