Japanese Hermeneutics

Book excerpt: Japanese Hermeneutics provides a forum for the most current international debates on the role played by interpretative models in the articulation of cultural discourses on Japan. It presents the thinking of esteemed Western philosophers, aestheticians, and art and literary historians, and introduces to English-reading audiences some of Japan's most distinguished scholars, whose work has received limited or no exposure in the United States. In the first part, Hermeneutics and Japan, contributors examine the difficulties inherent in articulating otherness without falling into the trap of essentialization and while relying on Western epistemology for explanation and interpretation. In the second part, Japan's Aesthetic Hermeneutics, they explore the role of aesthetics in shaping discourses on art and nature in Japan. The essays in the final section of the book, Japan's Literary Hermeneutics, rethink the notion of Japanese literature in light of recent findings on the ideological implications of canon formations and transformations within Japan's prominent literary circles.