Please join us for a discussion of Jun’ichirō Tanizaki‘s 1933 classic In Praise of Shadows. Another Look will discuss Tanizaki’s 73-page essay at 7 p.m. (PST) on Monday, April 29, at Levinthal Hall in the Stanford Humanities Center at 424 Santa Teresa Street on the Stanford campus. This is a hybrid event, so you can come in person or via zoom, but we encourage you to register either way here or on the link below.

Panelists will include Stanford Prof. Robert Pogue Harrison, author, director of Another Look, host of the radio talk show and podcast series Entitled Opinions, and a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books, and three special guests: Mark Gonnerman, who has a Stanford PhD in religious studies, has been a student of Japanese histories and cultures since he first ventured to Kyoto in the mid-1970s. Meri Mitsuyoshi is a longtime Another Look aficionado whose appreciation of Japanese aesthetics is informed by study of ritual and intergenerational cultural transmission.

Rounding out the panel: Ethen Wood, the associate director of Stanford’s Sustainable Architecture + Engineering. For eleven years, he has taught architectural design studio courses and co-taught courses on Japanese modern architecture. In addition, he has his own architectural design office in San Francisco. He grew up in San Francisco’s Zen Buddhist community in the 80’s and spent part of his childhood in a Zen Buddhist monastery in the mountains of Carmel, without electricity. “This was part of a concerted effort by the temple to stay true to the traditions and historic experiences from Japan,” he said.

“In his delightful essay on Japanese taste Junichiro Tanizaki selects for praise all things delicate and nuanced, everything softened by shadows and the patina of age, anything understated and natural – as for example the patterns of grain in old wood, the sound of rain dripping from eaves and leaves, or washing over the footing of a stone lantern in a garden, and refreshing the moss that grows about it,” writes A.C. Grayling in The Guardian. “Tanizaki’s relish in the world and its ordinary pleasures offers a sharp contrast to the functional, plastic, disposable aesthetic of modern western life.”

This isn’t the first time Another Look discusses an essay – our discussion of Virginia Woolf‘s A Room of One’s Own got worldwide attention. We hope Tanizaki’s consideration of Japanese architecture and aesthetics generates the same enthusiasm. Tanizaki (1886-1965) was nominated several times for a Nobel prize, and was on the final shortlist in the year before his death. Youtube video here discusses his life and his book.

This event is sponsored by the Stanford Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages and the Continuing Studies Program at Stanford, and the Stanford Humanities Center.

https://stanford.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ZeL5ynQVQnW6JZzrvhbHFg#/registration