06-12 Observing Ritual: Invisible Gods, Tourists, and Ethnographic Filmmaking in Japan

Friday, November 03, 2:30 pm–4:30 pm
Galleria III

This live event will not be recorded.


Chair: Michael Dylan Foster (University of California, Davis)

2:30 pm
An Introduction to Aenokoto: Ritual, History, ICH
Michael Dylan Foster (University of California, Davis)

3:15 pm
Interpreting heritage, culture, and ritual
Naoko Yamada (Kanazawa University)

3:30 pm
The standardization of Aenokoto rituals: through the heritagization and publicization
Ulara TAMURA (Kanazawa University)

3:45 pm
Anthropological Filmmaking in Noto Peninsula
John Wells (Filmmaker)

In this session, four scholars/filmmakers from Japan and the U.S. present an ethnographic film about a Japanese ritual in which agrarian gods are invited into homes for the winter. Although the gods cannot be seen, the householders give them a bath and serve them a meal. Our film focuses on the ritual itself as well as its contemporary performance for tourists; we show and question the role of vision in the construction of the event. The screening will be followed by a roundtable discussion in which we raise questions about documenting folklore for the screen.