Geoffrey Sanborn
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199751693
- eISBN:
- 9780199894819
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199751693.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 19th Century Literature, World Literature
Chapter Three retells the story of Te Pehi Kupe, a Maori chief who forced himself onto a passing ship and traveled to England. Just as the whip-scarred back of Te Ara is the central image in Chapter ...
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Chapter Three retells the story of Te Pehi Kupe, a Maori chief who forced himself onto a passing ship and traveled to England. Just as the whip-scarred back of Te Ara is the central image in Chapter One, so is the moko, or facial tattoo, of Te Pehi Kupe the central image of this chapter. Understood as, in the words of the anthropologist Alfred Gell, “a barrier between a secular self and unmediated divinity” that “open[s] a space” in a world in which one is “eventually destined to be crushed,” the moko may be said to be a performative signifier of defiance, tracing out a limited but real space between nonbeing and transcendence.Less
Chapter Three retells the story of Te Pehi Kupe, a Maori chief who forced himself onto a passing ship and traveled to England. Just as the whip-scarred back of Te Ara is the central image in Chapter One, so is the moko, or facial tattoo, of Te Pehi Kupe the central image of this chapter. Understood as, in the words of the anthropologist Alfred Gell, “a barrier between a secular self and unmediated divinity” that “open[s] a space” in a world in which one is “eventually destined to be crushed,” the moko may be said to be a performative signifier of defiance, tracing out a limited but real space between nonbeing and transcendence.
Angela S. Chiu
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780824858742
- eISBN:
- 9780824873684
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824858742.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
Statues of the Buddha proliferate in Thailand. Every town and province honors its own special Buddha image. The Emerald Buddha, housed on the grounds of the royal Grand Palace, is the country’s ...
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Statues of the Buddha proliferate in Thailand. Every town and province honors its own special Buddha image. The Emerald Buddha, housed on the grounds of the royal Grand Palace, is the country’s palladium. Typically, Buddha images have been defined as devotional reminders or doctrinal symbols, but these explanations fail to account for the complex and deep relationships between Buddha images and their communities. In order to understand Buddha statues, we must consider them as the productions of living societies. The Buddha image is an object that represents not only the Buddha himself but also channels the sometimes divergent interests of the lay devotees and monks who build, consecrate and venerate it. This understanding of the Buddha image as a participant in the social world of its worshippers is strikingly depicted in monastic chronicles, tamnan, from the Lanna region centered in northern Thailand.Less
Statues of the Buddha proliferate in Thailand. Every town and province honors its own special Buddha image. The Emerald Buddha, housed on the grounds of the royal Grand Palace, is the country’s palladium. Typically, Buddha images have been defined as devotional reminders or doctrinal symbols, but these explanations fail to account for the complex and deep relationships between Buddha images and their communities. In order to understand Buddha statues, we must consider them as the productions of living societies. The Buddha image is an object that represents not only the Buddha himself but also channels the sometimes divergent interests of the lay devotees and monks who build, consecrate and venerate it. This understanding of the Buddha image as a participant in the social world of its worshippers is strikingly depicted in monastic chronicles, tamnan, from the Lanna region centered in northern Thailand.
Angela S. Chiu
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780824858742
- eISBN:
- 9780824873684
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824858742.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
This work is the first in-depth historical study of the Thai tradition of donation of that most iconic of Thai art objects, the Buddha image. The book introduces stories from tamnan(chronicles), ...
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This work is the first in-depth historical study of the Thai tradition of donation of that most iconic of Thai art objects, the Buddha image. The book introduces stories from tamnan(chronicles), monastic histories and legends from the Lanna region centered in today’s northern Thailand. Examination of themes, structures and motifs illuminates the conceptual and material aspects of Buddha images that influenced their functions in Lanna society. As agents and mediators of social agency, Buddha images were focal points of pan-regional political-religious lineages and rivalries, indeed, the very generators of history itself. Statues also unified the Buddha with the northern Thai landscape, integrating Buddhist and local significances of place. The book also compares Thai statues with Sri Lankan and Burmese-Mon Buddha relics and images, contributing to broader understanding of how materially different types of Buddhist representations mediated the Buddha’s ‘presence.’ Moreover, the book considers fundamental yet rarely critically deliberated questions such as how particular statues were selected as models to be copied. This involves the image’s aspect as an exchange of financial outlay for merit, ‘commoditized’ even as it is ‘singularized’ through enshrinement. Throughout its ‘life,’ the Thai Buddha image is always a part of wider society beyond monastery walls.Less
This work is the first in-depth historical study of the Thai tradition of donation of that most iconic of Thai art objects, the Buddha image. The book introduces stories from tamnan(chronicles), monastic histories and legends from the Lanna region centered in today’s northern Thailand. Examination of themes, structures and motifs illuminates the conceptual and material aspects of Buddha images that influenced their functions in Lanna society. As agents and mediators of social agency, Buddha images were focal points of pan-regional political-religious lineages and rivalries, indeed, the very generators of history itself. Statues also unified the Buddha with the northern Thai landscape, integrating Buddhist and local significances of place. The book also compares Thai statues with Sri Lankan and Burmese-Mon Buddha relics and images, contributing to broader understanding of how materially different types of Buddhist representations mediated the Buddha’s ‘presence.’ Moreover, the book considers fundamental yet rarely critically deliberated questions such as how particular statues were selected as models to be copied. This involves the image’s aspect as an exchange of financial outlay for merit, ‘commoditized’ even as it is ‘singularized’ through enshrinement. Throughout its ‘life,’ the Thai Buddha image is always a part of wider society beyond monastery walls.
Warren Boutcher
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198123743
- eISBN:
- 9780191829437
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198123743.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature, European Literature
The first chapter of volume one is a prologue to the whole two-volume study, and provides introductions to concepts of reading and writing and self-knowledge, using examples such as Lady Anne ...
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The first chapter of volume one is a prologue to the whole two-volume study, and provides introductions to concepts of reading and writing and self-knowledge, using examples such as Lady Anne Clifford. It applies the Gellian model of social context to the case of texts (with paratexts) understood as portraits or images, and to the documentary record of Montaigne’s role as an unofficial, private judge or mediator in early modern philosophical culture. Two anecdotes about different kinds of artefacts given by scholars to the head of household at Montaigne are discussed: a medical amulet and a philosophical book. But both come with instructions for their use as prophylactics. Both end up being put to modified uses in new circumstances. The gifts themselves, what is done with the gifts, and the anecdotes as printed in the Essais together exemplify the indexing of agency relations within early modern types of art nexus.Less
The first chapter of volume one is a prologue to the whole two-volume study, and provides introductions to concepts of reading and writing and self-knowledge, using examples such as Lady Anne Clifford. It applies the Gellian model of social context to the case of texts (with paratexts) understood as portraits or images, and to the documentary record of Montaigne’s role as an unofficial, private judge or mediator in early modern philosophical culture. Two anecdotes about different kinds of artefacts given by scholars to the head of household at Montaigne are discussed: a medical amulet and a philosophical book. But both come with instructions for their use as prophylactics. Both end up being put to modified uses in new circumstances. The gifts themselves, what is done with the gifts, and the anecdotes as printed in the Essais together exemplify the indexing of agency relations within early modern types of art nexus.
Angela S. Chiu
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780824858742
- eISBN:
- 9780824873684
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824858742.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
This chapter summarizes the main findings of each chapter.
This chapter summarizes the main findings of each chapter.
Laurel Kendall, Jongsung Yang, and Yul Soo Yoon
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824847647
- eISBN:
- 9780824868338
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824847647.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
We describe how Koran shaman paintings came to be revalorized as “art” when South Korean collectors recuperated them in the wake of anti-superstition campaigns that accompanied South Korea’s ...
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We describe how Koran shaman paintings came to be revalorized as “art” when South Korean collectors recuperated them in the wake of anti-superstition campaigns that accompanied South Korea’s compressed modernity. We reconstruct a history of collecting and suggest some of the paths that brought discarded paintings into the market. Our discussion begins with an evocation of the birth of “primitive art” in the eyes of Picasso and his cohorts, drawing a contrast between the European and American collectors’ celebration of “Otherness” and South Korean collectors’ expressed sense of familiarity toward shaman paintings. We describe the process of naming the paintings as “art” as an example of what Latour considers “purification,” a renaming of once-magical things in modern ways. As with Latour’s notion of the hybrid, the purification of the shaman painting is incomplete and traces of its former life remain, possibly enhancing the frisson it imparts to the collector.Less
We describe how Koran shaman paintings came to be revalorized as “art” when South Korean collectors recuperated them in the wake of anti-superstition campaigns that accompanied South Korea’s compressed modernity. We reconstruct a history of collecting and suggest some of the paths that brought discarded paintings into the market. Our discussion begins with an evocation of the birth of “primitive art” in the eyes of Picasso and his cohorts, drawing a contrast between the European and American collectors’ celebration of “Otherness” and South Korean collectors’ expressed sense of familiarity toward shaman paintings. We describe the process of naming the paintings as “art” as an example of what Latour considers “purification,” a renaming of once-magical things in modern ways. As with Latour’s notion of the hybrid, the purification of the shaman painting is incomplete and traces of its former life remain, possibly enhancing the frisson it imparts to the collector.
