The celebration of eternity: Space-times of the state and gestures of history in the early modern no theater of Japan.

摘要

This dissertation is a limited ethnography of the no theater, especially in its status as the shikigaku, or official ceremony of state, in early modern Japan. Principal concerns include the performing of a geography of state and state power; the relation between the space-times of this state geography and economies of monetary and other values---including especially aesthetic values (and therefore, this dissertation is also concerned with the relation between social, political, and aesthetic form); and the possibilities for change and difference within these geographies and economies of value.;The central point of departure is an event, in 1848: although a time of calamitous crisis, the shogunate sponsored the largest program of no performances ever (spread out over six months), and renamed the era after it. The dissertation proceeds as an unpacking of this event-both as a repetition of a well-entrenched set of official practices, and as a unique moment in history-and a consideration of what was at stake for the shogun in sponsoring a no program at such a time.;Through an examination of the usages to which the no was put, I show how the emplotment of a no play; the flows of the rulers' rice based economy; the organization and flows of city space, and even structures of visuality, can all be thought of in terms of each other, as embodiments of the same "economic" order of things.;Ultimately, I claim that there was a complex interaction of differing modes of orientation in the early modern period, which entailed differing spatial orders, differing temporalities, and in effect, differing modes of social form. I argue that by approaching events such as the no performance of 1848 in these terms, one can see the experience of the state, of power, and of history itself as a specific confluence and negotiation of these different modes of orientation. By focusing on the event, this dissertation therefore also attempts to provide an understanding of the workings at once of history in sociocultural form, and sociocultural form in history.