Section 8 | Religion and History of Ideas | Session
9, Film
Cosmic Disc: the Kumano Kanjin Jikkai Mandala on DVD
David Plath and Ronald Toby, University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign
Our media team recently completed work on a digital video
disc that revolves around the Kumano Mandala and the Kumano
Nuns who employed it as a preaching tool from the 17 th
into the 20 th centuries. The disc offers:
- a 37-minute video program---Preaching
From Pictures---that takes the viewer on tour
around the Kumano Mandala, contrasting its imagined
worlds with life in the everyday world of early Edo
as depicted in the early 17th century Edozu byobu.
(The video
program is available separately on VHS videotape).
- a
4-minute etoki picture-sermon
adapted from the 17 th century puppet drama Michiyukishu.
- a
2-hour virtual symposium made up of conversations between
pairs of Japanese Studies scholars, illustrated with
many additional images of Japanese religious practices
past and present. Participants are: Barbara Ambros, Max
Moerman, Brian Ruppert, Henry DeWitt Smith II, and Ronald
P. Toby.
- interactive features that
include buttons linked to a Glossary of technical terms
and Japanese words used in the main chapters, and to
a Gallery with source information for images.
We intend this to be an "interactive" session.
We will introduce the project, then screen sample segments
from the DVD. After each screening we will offer our comments
and then invite audience participation. Also we will reflect
on the value of using digital discs as a medium for scholarly
communication in Japanese Studies.