Papers by Sara L . Sumpter
Twisted Mirrors: Reflections of Monstrous Humanity, 2012
This article examines the political and social atmosphere surrounding the production of the thirt... more This article examines the political and social atmosphere surrounding the production of the thirteenth-century hand scroll Kitano Tenjin engi emaki (Illustrated Legends of the Kitano Shrine), which depicts the life, death and posthumous revenge of the ninth-century courtier Sugawara no Michizane. The article combines an analysis of the content and religious iconography of the scroll, a study of early Japanese beliefs in angry spirits of the dead, and a narration of the actual life of Michizane in an attempt to produce a sketch of the rituals and superstitions of Heian and early Kamakura period Japanese society, and to suggest possible functions of the hand scroll that complement them. The hand scroll sets collectively known as the Kitano Tenjin engi emaki (Illustrated Legends of the Kitano Shrine) each tell the story of the life and death of the ninth- century courtier and poet, Sugawara no Michizane (845-903), and of the posthumous revenge undertaken by his vengeful spirit (onryô)....
The second half of the twelfth century witnessed a curious boom at the Heian Court in Japan—the p... more The second half of the twelfth century witnessed a curious boom at the Heian Court in Japan—the production of illustrated handscrolls whose narratives centered on a specific type of historical figure. Within a span of fifty years or less, three such handscroll sets were produced: the Kibi Daijin nittō emaki, the Ban Dainagon emaki, and the Kitano Tenjin engi emaki. In each story, the protagonist is an aristocrat who had lived three-to-four-hundred years previous to the production of the handscroll set. Each of the men in question had died in exile, and each was—at one point or another—believed to have become a vengeful spirit. Moreover, in each case, the narrative presented in the handscroll differs from, or elides, the historical record. The Kibi Daijin nittō emaki presents an entirely fictional tale based only loosely on the lives of its protagonists; the Ban Dainagon emaki records a highly embellished version of a well-documented political scandal; and the Kitano Tenjin engi emak...
This article examines the political and social atmosphere surrounding the production of the thirt... more This article examines the political and social atmosphere surrounding the production of the thirteenth-century hand scroll Kitano Tenjin engi emaki (Illustrated Legends of the Kitano Shrine), which depicts the life, death and posthumous revenge of the ninth-century courtier Sugawara no Michizane. The article combines an analysis of the content and religious iconography of the scroll, a study of early Japanese beliefs in angry spirits of the dead, and a narration of the actual life of Michizane in an attempt to produce a sketch of the rituals and superstitions of Heian and early Kamakura period Japanese society, and to suggest possible functions of the hand scroll that complement them.
When it was fi rst released in Japan in 1998, the supernatural horror thriller Ringu sparked a cu... more When it was fi rst released in Japan in 1998, the supernatural horror thriller Ringu sparked a cult phenomenon. Growing in popularity by word of mouth, the fi lm went on to become an international franchise, with remakes of the terrifying fi lm appearing in Korea and the United States. The fi lm, which tells the story of a cursed videotape (psychically created by the angry spirit of a woman named Yamamura Sadako 1 ) that causes the viewer's death in one week, was notable both for its reliance on mood and tension rather than gore or cheap scare tactics and for its use of iconographic horror imagery, a long-standing device used in the Japanese horror traditions of literature and stage.
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Papers by Sara L . Sumpter