Making Worlds, Shaping Selves: Religion, Museums and Cultural Techniques in Contemporary Japan

When I first came to Japan in 1993, I associated Buddhism primarily with meditation and Shintō with the deities Izanagi and Izanami. At the Star Festival of the Buddhist-oriented New Religion Agonshū, in the mountains above Kyoto, its members burned thirty million wooden prayer sticks. It was there that I realised the importance of practices and material forms for the social reality of religion. This observation forms the starting point for my lecture.
Using Agonshū as an example, I will show how rituals for the ancestors and practices of self-cultivation enable people to deal with personal problems and their social environment. The focus then turns to World Mate, a New Religion more strongly oriented towards Shintō and likewise offering its members techniques for problem-solving and self-cultivation. To study World Mate, it is first necessary to sort through the numerous attributions associated with Shintō. I shall therefore briefly discuss the writings of the so-called ‘spiritual intellectuals’, who selected historical interpretations, recombined them, and attributed them to Shintō. The analysis then shifts from discursive constructions of religious tradition back to the ways in which religious life takes shape in everyday practice. A detour to a Zen temple in Nagano will demonstrate how strongly religious practice is shaped by the communal, cultural and charitable aspects of temple life. 
From here, the lecture turns to Japan’s museum landscape, which has undergone profound changes over the past twenty years. Spectacular architecture and exhibitions connect art with sensory experience and diverse social practices. Beginning with museums founded by New Religions, I will examine how they confer meaning on objects, give cultural ideas social validity, and offer visitors opportunities for participation and self-assurance. In this context, I propose that museums can be regarded as formations analogous to religion.
The lecture thus traces a path of inquiry from religious formations to formations analogous to religion. At its centre is the question of how cultural institutions provide techniques through which people shape their relationship to themselves and to others. It also asks how ideas acquire individual and social validity through practices, material forms, and shared experiences.
 

Organiser and contact: Edouard L’Herisson View e-mail