Special Lecture :
"Gazing from 'the World Beyond'
------ Perspectives of Death and Life Embellishing iei [portraits of the deceased]"
- Lecturer :
- Prof.Iwayumi Suzuki (Tohoku University)
October 10, 2003 17:00-19:00
at Lecture Hall 1, Faculty of Law & Letters Bldg.2, The University of Tokyo
On October 10th, we held a special lecture titled "Gazing from
'the World Beyond' ---- Perspectives of Death and Life Embellishing
iei [portraits of the deceased]" by Professor Iwayumi Suzuki (Tohoku University). Professor Suzuki is an specialist
in religious anthropology, and has been conducting research on the perspectives
on the representations of the deceased known in Japanese as iei in contemporary
societies.
In the lecture, Professor Suzuki discussed the ways in which the methodologies
of approaching representational objects related to death influenced
his research which attempts to explore the perspectives of death. He
then introduced various practices surrounding the portrait and photographic
representations of the dead in various parts of Japan, and asserted
that in Japan, the practice of leaving a representation of the dead
was not generally accepted until recently. He then focused his talk
on photographic representations, and made several observations on the
changes of the perspectives on death based on his findings in the treatment
of photographic representations of the dead in families. Professor Suzuki
claimed that in contemporary families, the photographs of the dead serve
more as the object of prayer, rather than an object of commemoration,
and that contrary to the past practice that passed down the images of
the dead within a familial genealogy, contemporary people tend to treat
and regard the images as individuals, independent of familial associations.
An active discussion followed the talk, asking Professor Suzuki about
the existence of practice of leaving pictorial representations of the
dead in pre-modern Japan, or the unique properties of the photographic
medium, the origin of the word iei in Japanese, and comparison
with other cultures. The discussion also tried to reach the consensus
that it is necessity to pursue this topic through sociological approach
and photographic theory and history.
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