Eike Grossmann – författare

Manuscript cultures have frequently forgotten, neglected, or even erased women’s contributions from memory. Women’s agency has also been a glaring blind spot in the scholarly pursuit of gender perspectives on the production of written artefacts. This volume addresses these lacunae by highlighting manuscripts and inscriptions by and for women, their active participation and enabling sponsorship, and their role in the circulation and dissemination of written artefacts. Seven papers present case studies from East Asian inscriptions to ancient cuneiform epigraphic, Egyptian graffiti from late antiquity to individual specimen and large-scale collections in medieval Europe, focusing on how women participated in and contributed to those. How did they assert their involvement, their claims and their aspirations? By what rationales and mechanisms were they excluded or their contribution marginalised? How did they react to structures that discriminated against them, eventually circumventing, subverting and transforming them? The present volume sheds light on new findings, gives unique insights and discusses methodological considerations in the budding field of women’s manuscript studies.

In the 1960s, Kurokawa’s historic nō tradition, as theatre and festival, came under the spotlight of the Japanese public. Advertised as ‘secret nō of the snow country’ it soon became one of the most well-known and long-studied folk performing arts traditions. That a secluded village isolated by mountainous country around it should have developed and sustained a high cultural entertainment such as nō theatre and integrated it into Shinto shrine festivals, prompted considerable interest among folklore scholars, theatre researchers, politicians, and tourists alike. Even today Kurokawa nō continues to be regarded as an example of an earlier form of Japanese culture and folk tradition that essentially has been frozen in time over the course of many centuries.In this volume, the author provides a detailed record of the history and development of Kurokawa nō and the processes of its transmission over the generations. The author also examines its impact on the wider cultural life of Japan and its literary heritage, the travel industry, government policy and folklore traditions in Japan generally. In addition, Kurokawa Nō offers an invaluable, authentic case study in the wider context of notions of Japanese self-perception and self-representation.