Professor Wiebke Denecke of Boston University will be giving a talk entitled: “Writing and the Imperial Imagination in Early Japan–A Glimpse through Augustan Rome.”
Early cultural heroes and rulers in East Asia are often associated with writing and textual mastery, and literacy mattered strongly as a form of civilizing power. This stands in thought-provoking contrast to cultural heroes in Greco-Roman antiquity who, like Aeneas, more often excel as city founders and community builders rather than sophisticated writers or readers. What does this contrast tell us more generally about the different cultural status of writing in early East Asia and the Ancient Mediterranean? This lecture explores particular examples from early Japan and shows how comparison with Roman cases can help us appreciate more deeply how script and writing, alongside its cultural representations, connected the various polities of premodern East Asia.
Friday, Feb. 13th at 5:00 | Griffin 7