Handmade Culture : : Raku Potters, Patrons, and Tea Practitioners in Japan / / Morgan Pitelka.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Asian Studies Backlist (2000-2014) eBook Package
• VerfasserIn: Pitelka, Morgan,
• Place / Publishing House: Honolulu : : University of Hawaii Press, , [2005]; ©2005
• Year of Publication: 2005
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (252 p.) :; 54 illus., 3 maps

Handmade Culture is the first comprehensive and cohesive study in any language to examine Raku, one of Japan’s most famous arts and a pottery technique practiced around the world. More than a history of ceramics, this innovative work considers four centuries of cultural invention and reinvention during times of both political stasis and socioeconomic upheaval. It combines scholarly erudition with an accessible story through its lively and lucid prose and its generous illustrations. The author’s own experiences as the son of a professional potter and a historian inform his unique interdisciplinary approach, manifested particularly in his sensitivity to both technical ceramic issues and theoretical historical concerns. Handmade Culture makes ample use of archaeological evidence, heirloom ceramics, tea diaries, letters, woodblock prints, and gazetteers and other publications to narrate the compelling history of Raku, a fresh approach that sheds light not only on an important traditional art from Japan, but on the study of cultural history itself.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- note to readers -- Preface -- Introduction -- 1. The Global and the Local in the Origins of the Raku Technique -- 2. Anomie and Innovation in Kyoto -- 3. Inventing Early Modern Identity -- 4. Institutionalization of the Iemoto Gaze -- 5. Reproduction and Appropriation in the Nationwide Dispersal of the Raku Technique -- 6. Inventing Modern Identity -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the author