Apotheosis and memory: Ishii Jūji, a savior for our times
This article examines the relationship between history, sacred architecture, and the production of meaning. In particular, it discusses the way in which the historical figure of Ishii Jūji (1865-1914), a renowned child relief activist and religious utopianist of late nineteenth-and early twentieth-c...
Main Author: | |
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Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
Taylor & Francis
[2014]
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In: |
Material religion
Year: 2014, Volume: 10, Issue: 3, Pages: 346-375 |
Further subjects: | B
Yūaisha
B sacred architecture B history and memory B Ishii Jūji |
Online Access: |
Volltext (Resolving-System) |
Summary: | This article examines the relationship between history, sacred architecture, and the production of meaning. In particular, it discusses the way in which the historical figure of Ishii Jūji (1865-1914), a renowned child relief activist and religious utopianist of late nineteenth-and early twentieth-century Japan, becomes constituted as a sacred symbol through the interplay of architecture, displays, and iconography at the Ishii Jūji Museum in the grounds of the Ishii Jūji Kinen Yūaisha (the Ishii Jūji Memorial Center of Loving Friendship; hereafter Yūaisha). Through its commemoration, the Yūaisha draws upon a complex historical legacy as the source of its present vision and attributes to Ishii a divine status through material representations in the form of texts, photographs, objects, and religious iconography. Moreover, the Yūaisha, propelled by Ishii as sacred symbol, has come to produce new material spaces, through the construction of buildings, fields, gardens, through which its vision of social care may be realized. As a result, history and material religion collide to produce new spaces of meaning in the present. |
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ISSN: | 1751-8342 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Material religion
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2752/175183414X14101642921465 |