By Chloe Jung ’27
This year’s Pacific Area Studies Annual Lecture, organized by the Asian Studies Department Program at Colorado College, hosted esteemed scholar and teacher of Japanese literature, as Reginald Jackson from the University of Michigan. Dr. Jackson earned his B.A. in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from Amherst University in 2001 and his P.h.D in East Asian Studies from Princeton University in 2007 before joining the Asian Languages faculty at Yale University and University of Chicago. In 2015, he entered the University of Michigan as a scholar of ancient Japanese literature and has since expanded his studies into areas such as performance, race, and queerness. He is now the Associate Professor of Premodern Japanese Literature and Performance at the University of Michigan, where he enjoys researching Noh dance-drama, contemporary Japanese choreography, African American literature, queer studies, translation, and much more. Dr. Jackson has authored and published two books, Textures of Mourning: Calligraphy, Mortality, and The Tale of Genji Scrolls (2018) and A Proximate Remove: Queering Intimacy and Loss in The Tale of Genji (2021), with two more in the works. The content of one of these works in progress (Spectacular Dominion: Slavery, Performance, and the Boundaries of Personhood in Premodern Japan) was the primary topic of discussion at his lecture.
In his lecture “Slave Dramas and the Question of Personhood in Medieval Japanese Performance,” Dr. Jackson expertly explored the nuanced historical background of Nō drama in medieval Japan and considered two main overarching inquiries concerning specifically the drama titled Jinen Koji (after its protagonist). The inquiries were as follows: “What is the relationship between slavery, personhood, and performance?” and “What role does performance play in the sexual, spiritual, and economic transactions that shape personhood?” The play itself is a Nō performance displaying the tale of a young girl who sells herself into slavery in exchange for a kimono and whose freedom is subsequently bought by means of performance, a rhythmic dance by none other than Jinen Koji himself. Dr. Jackson addressed first the former inquiry, as he emphasized the portrayal of Jinen Koji’s dance as a form of currency, strengthening his argued relationship between power and performance. Observing the actual costume design of the actors, he also brought attention to the sensual dynamics between Jinen Koji, whose status as a preacher is in actuality not so distant from that of an outcast, and the leader of the slave masters. With this, he incorporated the element of desire into this bond of power between performance.
Next, Dr. Jackson went on to explain the emergence and history of the Nō drama, contextualizing that Medieval Nō was a “venue for…undermining perceptions of performers as subhuman.” He referred to the various instances in which Jinen Koji brought the unfortunate and often brutal conditions of the medieval Japanese caste system (of which the lower classes included performers, preachers, and slaves) to light, drawing sympathy from the audience. Subsequently, he described both the minute and drastic changes that the art of Nō bore, such as the style of theatrics/dancing that shifted overtime from harsh, violent movements to gentle, purposeful, and graceful ones. These changes, he explained, were mostly due to the Japanese actor and playwright Zeami Motokiyo, who wished to reject the ‘roughness’ of Noh and elevate its status and style to entertain an upper-class audience. Here, we realize that both the content of Nō dramas and the art or practice of Nō dramas must adjust in a system of wealth and transactions.
Dr. Jackson concluded his lecture with a Q&A with the audience, where he touched more on the traditional process of slavery in Japan, the role of Buddhist karma in slavery, and the overall emotive power that the Nō dramas possessed. His lecture, though titularly focused on slave dramas and medieval Japanese performance, provided the audience with a remarkably comprehensive historical account of medieval Japan through displays of art, performance, and class.