Archives par mot-clé : Chevalerie

[16-17 oct. 2025] : Colloque International : Samouraïs et chevaliers à l’écrit et l’écran

Colloque International

Samouraïs et chevaliers à l’écrit et l’écran :

Enjeux historiques, mythologiques, esthétiques

 

Dates : Jeudi 16 & vendredi 17 octobre 2025

Lieu : CESCM, Hôtel Berthelot, 24 rue de la Chaîne, salle Crozet

Jeudi 16 octobre 2025

 

13h / Accueil des participants

13h30 / Ouverture du colloque par Anne-Cécile Guilbard(Assesseure à la Recherche de l’UFR Lettres & Langues) et Cécile Voyer (Directrice du CESCM, de l’UFR Sciences Humaines et Arts)

13h45-14h / Introduction par Pascale DROUET (Université de Poitiers-CESCM) et Anne-Marie COSTANTINI-CORNÈDE (Sorbonne Nouvelle-PRISMES)

1. Chevaliers, samouraïs : tournants historiques, enjeux culturels et ambiguïtés éthiques

Présidente de séance : Pascale Drouet

14h-14h30 / Marion BRACQ (Université de Lille 3) : « Quand la Sword and Sorcery italienne revisitait l’Orlando furioso de l’Arioste : I Paladini, storia d’armi et d’amori de Giacomo Battiato (1984) »

14h30-15h / Pierre LEVRON (Chargé de recherches au CNRS (UMR 7302, CESCM) : « Existe-t-il un droit de la chevalerie, ou : la littérature servirait-elle à l’enseignement de la coutume ? Enquête dans le Roman de Tristan en Prose »

15h-15h30 / Anne-Marie COSTANTINI-CORNÈDE (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris Cité) : « Visions of Samurai and Knighthood: Kurosawa’s and Other Jidaigeki, Intercultural Perspectives »

 Questions (15mn) & pause (15 min)

2. Samouraïs et Japon féodal : enjeux historiques et mythologiques

Président de séance : Claire Guéron

16h-16h30 / Delphine MULARD (Université de Strasbourg) : « Évolution de la figure du guerrier chasseur de démon : étude de la représentation du récit Shutendôji (le Jouvenceau buveur) »

16h30-17h / Natalia DOAN (University of Tennessee, Knoxville) : « The 1860 Japanese Embassy and the Transnational Influence of Tokugawa Japan » 

17h-17h30 / Jean DU VERGER (ENSMM Besançon, VALE) : « The Woman as Spider in Early Modern Japan in Tanizaki’s “Shisei” (1909) and Masumura’s Irezumi (1966) »

 Questions (15mn)

 Apéritif de bienvenue au CESCM, salle Berger (18h)

19h30-22h30 / Soirée cinéma : Présentation du film Yojimbo (110mn) de Akira Kurosawa par Anne-Marie COSTANTINI-CORNÈDE et Gilles Menegaldo, modération par Jean-Luc Terradillos, suivie d’une discussion avec le public (temps d’ouverture grand public)

Vendredi 17 octobre 2025

 

3. Enjeux médiévaux culturels : études comparatives

 Présidente de séance : Anne-Hélène Miller

9h30-10h / Marta AÑORBE MATEOS (University of Zaragoza) : « The Self-questioning Hero: A Comparative Study of the Heroic Model of Taira no Shigemori and Perceval »

10h-10h30 / Claire GUÉRON (Université de Bourgogne) : « La notion de “geste juste” dans le bushido et chez le guerrier shakespearien »

10h30-11h / Matthew Bryan GILLIS (University of Tennessee, Marco Institute) : « Beautiful Weapons and Bloody, Bloody Wounds: The Aesthetics of Warfare in Medieval Epic »

Questions (15 mn) & pause (15mm)

Président de séance : Matthew Gillis

11h30-12h / Malgorzata K. CITKO-DU PLANTIS (University of Tennessee, Marco Institute), « The Softer Side of Warrior Culture – Medieval Samurai and Knights Who Wrote Poetry »

12h-12h30 / Anne-Hélène MILLER (University of Tennessee, Marco Institute) : « Re-inventing the Warrior Image in Time of Peace: Survival or Nostalgia? »

Questions (15mn)

12h45-14h15   déjeuner sur place (salle Berger)

4. Samouraïs et chevaliers : cinéma et histoire, enjeux artistiques

 Présidente de séance : Anne-Marie Costantini-Cornède

 

14h30-15h / Jessica X. DABOUIN (Université de Paris 1, ACTE) « Way of the Scissor-shears: Tadanori Yokoo’s depiction of samurai from the 1960s to today »

15h-15h30 / Minh VU CONG (Université de Lille 3), « Macbeth, de l’invraisemblable Moyen-Âge écossais à la fable baroque chez les samouraïs »

15h30-16h / Gilles MENEGALDO (Université de Poitiers, Professeur émérite), « Deux avatars cinématographiques du mythe arthurien : Excalibur (John Boorman, 1981) et Lancelot du lac (Robert Bresson, 1974) : entre spectaculaire et minimalisme »

Questions (15mn) & pause (15 minutes)

Président de séance : Gilles Ménégaldo

16h30-17h / Sergio BOFFA (Conservateur de Musée Nivelles, Belgique), « Une interprétation divergente du film Hara-kiri (Seppuku) de Kobayashi Masaki »

17h-17h30 / Andrea GRUNERT (Université de Bochum, Allemagne), « Critique du bushidō dans cinq jidai geki des années 1960 »

17h30-18h / Pascale DROUET (Université de Poitiers / CESCM), « Rulers and Counterfeiters: from Shakespeare’s 1 Henry IV to Welles’s Chimes at Midnight (1965) and Kurosawa’s Kagemusha (1980) »

Questions (15mn)

18h30 Clôture du colloque

Dîner de clôture en ville 19h30


ABSTRACTS

The Self-Questioning Hero: A Comparative Study of the Heroic Model of Taira no Shigemori and PercevalMarta Añorbe Mateos – (Ph.D student, University of Zaragoza (Spain)

This research explores the evolution of the heroic figure from practical prehistoric archetypes to ethically-driven heroes across Eastern and Western cultures through a comparative analysis of Taira no Shigemori from Heike Monogatari and Perceval from Li Contes del Graal. Drawing on scholars like Cavanaugh (2009), the study highlights the convergence of filial, secular, and divine duties in pre-modern Japan and medieval Europe, challenging conventional divisions in these morally complex heroes. It also critiques prevailing notions of Western and Japanese heroism, such as those of Morris (1975), by demonstrating that both heroic models, though failed, perform similar functions, and seek existential affirmation. This comparison deepens our understanding of the “culturally encoded epistemology” (Mori, 1996) that shapes the heroic narratives.

A Divergent Interpretation of Kobayashi Masaki’s Hara-Kiri / Sergio Boffa (Curator and Resarch Associate, Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium) and Musée Communal de Nivelles)

Film critics generally present Kobayashi’s Hara-Kiri as a harsh critique of the bushidō. This is not a mistake, but we think it is a superficial interpretation of this drama. It is important to remember that bushidō changes radically over the course of its history. To grasp the motivations and understand the actions of the protagonists in Kobayashi’s film, the viewer must be familiar with the specifics of bushidō in the period in question, i.e. the year 1630. We will show that Hara-Kiri is not a virulent attack on the ‘way of the warrior’, but rather a critique of the decadence of the bushido during the Tokugawa period, when it became a propaganda tool for the government.

Representations of Ariosto’s Orlando furioso in a Sword and Sorcery Movie: I paladini, storia d’arme e di amori de Giacomo Battiato (1984) / Marion Bracq (Doctor and Independent researcher)

This paper investigates how Ariosto’s fiction is transmitted and adapted through a Sword and Sorcery movie: I paladini, Storia d’armi et d’amori by Giacomo Battiato (1984). The director’s choices of script and themes show how he tries to manage the original material with the characteristics of the Sword and Sorcery’s aesthetic based on romance and fight. In fact, even if it is a free adaptation, there are explicit references to the epic poem. Moreover, as in Ariosto’s poem, heroes and heroines come together, seek each other out and find each other again. This paper will examine the importance of duos, duels and couples in the film’s narrative construction.

The Softer Side of Warrior Culture – Medieval Samurai and Knights Who Wrote Poetry / Małgorzata K. Citko-DuPlantis (Ph.D University of Tennessee, Knoxville (US)

Medieval Japanese warriors (bushi), known as samurai, were not only associated with violence but also with refined court culture, such as court poetry (waka). The Kamakura shogunate, established after the Genpei War in 1185, marked the rise of the samurai class. Although they were military nobility, the shogunate valued cultural pursuits, with notable figures like shogun Minamoto no Sanetomo (1192–1219) studying waka under the celebrated poet Fujiwara no Teika (1162–1241). This cultural engagement by samurai and shoguns reflected a softer side, challenging the violent image often portrayed in Western media. The paper explores these aspects and compares them to medieval European knights, highlighting the role of literary training in shaping masculine ideals across different warrior cultures.

Visions of Samurai and Knighthood: Kurosawa’s and Other Jidaigeki, Intercultural Perspectives / Anne-Marie Costantini-Cornède (Senior Lecturer,  Université de Paris Cité (France)

This paper analyses Kurosawa’s samurai as complex figures prone to illustrate Japan’s medieval evolving cultural contexts. As they enact the Buddhist-imbued, mythic Heian heroes (Minamoto), the elite-issued community protectors (Seven Samurai), the fierce but tragically falling sengoku jidai, ‘Warring States’ warriors (Throne of Blood, KagemushaRan) or the Bakumatsu deviant but rejuvenating ronin exemplifying the caste decline (Yojimbo), all nine films demonstrate in spectacular aesthetics how glorious feats are sustained both by universal ideals and timely spiritual beliefs. Beyond, they show how the twists and turns of a perverted, giri-driven bushido prevailing in gekoku-jo times may highlight underlying contradictions and question human frailties. 

Way of the Scissor-shears: Tadanori Yokoo’s Depiction of Samurai from the 1960s to Today / Jessica X. Dabouin (University of Paris I Panthéon, Sorbonne student, Sorbonne Ecole des Arts Plastiques (France)

This paper analyses how Yokoo’s artworks re-question the samurai’s status as an emblem of power and feudal social hierarchies. It examines how the samurai figure, in Yokoo’s collaborations with avant-garde artists such as Ôshima and Kara, begins to widen perspectives through the juxtaposition of premodern and Western pop culture imagery. The samurai’s complexities as icons of rebellion, as well as the samurai ethos and understanding of mortality, are further explored in Yokoo’s collaborations with Mishima developing an original and remedial outlook, as shown by his 1969 poster for Mishima’s kabuki play about Minamoto no Tametomo. Forever renegotiating registers of autobiography, nostalgia, and playfulness, the artist offers “scissor shears”-like, innovative depictions.

The 1860 Japanese Embassy and the Transnational Influence of Tokugawa Japan / Natalie Doan (Assistant Professor at the University of Tennesees, Knoxville/Marco Institute)

In 1860, seventeen-year-old samurai Tateishi Onojir made headlines across America for his real and imagined adventures as part of the 1860 Japanese Embassy, the first Japanese diplomatic mission to the United States. The perception of Tateishi’s interracial romantic encounters with American women sparked a cultural frenzy within the US that challenged linked conceptions of race, masculinity, and power. Examining the 1860 embassy reveals samurai serving as both a bridge between the United States and Japan, as well as a source of controversy in the United States at the time. This paper explores the transnational influence of Tokugawa Japan on identity formation, cultural productions, and intellectual discourse in antebellum America to share a new cultural history of Japan’s influence overseas.

Rulers and Counterfeiters: from Shakespeare’s 1 Henry IV to Welles’s Chimes at Midnight (1965) and Kurosawa’s Kagemusha (1980) / Pascale Drouet (Professor of British Early Modern Studies,   CESCM/University of Poitiers (France)

In the wake of Alex Watson’s analysis – “Shadowing Shakespeare: Akira Kurosawa’s Kagemusha (1980) and William Shakespeare’s English History Plays (c. 1591–98)” –, this paper will focus on the dialectics of the original and the double, the ruler and the subject, simulated life and simulated death. It narrows the focus on the counterfeiter himself, that is, Sir John Falstaff, the rogue, Sir Walter Blunt – King Henry IV’s “many marching in his coat” (5.3.25) or “his wardrobe” (27) – and Kagemusha, the shadow warrior of Takeda Shingen. It addresses their dramatic and meta-dramatic qualities, the political, ethical and symbolical questions they raise, and their specific aesthetics on screen (in both the Welles and Kurosawa productions) by examining their visual representation on the battlefields.

 The Woman as Spider in Early Modern Japan in Tanizaki’s “Shisei” (1909) and Masumura’s Irezumi (1966) / Jean Du Verger (Associate Professsor, SupMicroTech-ENSMM (France)

During the early modern period in Europe, the spider was portrayed by artists as a figure of artistic subtlety, while also being depicted as a symbol of passion. This duality was reverberated in Japan during the Tokugawa shogunate, as Tanizaki Jun’ichirȏ’s short story “Shisei” (1909) attests to. In 1966, Japanese film director Masumura Yasuzȏ adapted it to film. Irezumi focuses on the sexual and aesthetic aspects of the artist’s yearnings. This paper explores how the writer and film director represent their vision of XVIIth century Japan, and more precisely the way in which they portray the fallen ukiyo-e painter, turned tattooist and envision the question of art, while highlighting the status of women in early modern Japan.

Beautiful Weapons and Bloody, Bloody Wounds: The Aesthetics of Warfare in Medieval Epic / Matthew Bryan Gillis (Associate Professor, University of Tennessee, Knoxville (US)

This paper examines the aesthetics of violence in medieval Latin epic from the ninth to the thirteenth century. My interest will be to see how the contrast of beautiful weapons and horrible wounds could have increased the audience’s pleasure in imaginatively experiencing war’s terrors while reading or hearing the text. The essay also examines the epic, The Tale of the Heike along similar lines for the purpose of comparing medieval European and Japanese literary sensibilities about war.

A Critical View on bushidō in five jidai geki of the 1960s / Andrea Grunert (Independent scholar (Germany)

The jidai geki (historical films set in the Tokugawa period, 1603-1868) was a successful genre in Japan throughout the 1950s, but its decline began towards the end of that decade. However, a large number of major jidai geki were made in the following years. Five films that critically address the values of the samurai, the warrior class are at the core of the article: Masaki Kobayashi’s Harakiri (Seppuku, 1962) and Samurai Rebellion (Jōiuchi: hairyō tsuma shimatsu, 1967), Eiichi Kudo’s 13 Assassins (Jūsan-nin no shikaku, 1963), Tadashi Imai’s Cruel Tale of Bushidō (Bushidō zankoku monogatari, 1963) and Hideo Gosha’s Three Outlaw Samurai (Sanbiki no samurai, 1964). The criticism of bushidō, “the way of the warrior”, articulated in these films targets not only the past but also post-war Japan’s entrepreneurial culture inspired by interpretations of bushidō.

The « right movement » in Bushido and for Shakespeare’s Warriors / Claire Guéron (Professor, Université de Bourgogne (France)

Japanese martial arts were a “do”, meaning a “way” or method for achieving invincibility by aligning one’s movements and breath with the energy of the universe (“chi”). This principle seems poles apart from the providential chivalric ethos depicted in Shakespeare’s histories, according to which God leads the victor’s hand. Nevertheless, the ideal of the perfectly honed gesture is adumbrated in Shakespeare’s plays, as in The Merchant of Venice, when Bassanio reminds Antonio that the archer’s perfectly executed, endlessly repeatable gesture allows him to project his spirit into the future. This paper will discuss whether the “right movement”, in Shakespeare’s plays, may, despite certain negative connotations of ritualized gestures (inhumanity, Catholicism, black magic, theatricality) approach the “do” of the samurai.

The Law of Chivalry (Literature or Custom?): Investigation into the Roman de Tristan en prose / Pierre Levron (fellow researcher at the CNRS,  CESCM/University of Poitiers (France)

Western knights were subjects of the law, and Western vernacular literature developed when the codification of customary law was under way. What does this mean? Chansons de geste, but also novels, may be the arenas in which fictional chivalric customs were developed and could be transposed into actual practices. This paper will focus on the Roman de Tristan en prose. This long text, integrating the material of Tristan and Yseut with the material of Brittany, is essentially a novel of chivalry, i.e., it narrates battles but also questions of their regulation. The Roman de Tristan en prose examines both ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ rights, an ethic with its ambiguities, and the interaction between these values and the behaviours of knights. These main issues will be addressed.

Two Cinematic Avatars of the Arthurian Myth: Excalibur (John Boorman, 1981) and Lancelot du lac (Robert Bresson, 1974): High Entertainment versus Minimalism / Gilles Menegaldo (Emeritus Professor, University of Poitiers (France)

This paper compares two radically different visions. Boorman plays the epic and spectacular card, as the opening sequence illustrates. He summons the familiar characters from the Arthurian myth, in particular Merlin and Morgana. Adapting Mallory’s La Morte d’Arthur, he exploits the symbolic wealth of the tale, featuring warlike adventures and foregrounding King Arthur’s and Percival’s spiritual quest. Boorman rejects realism and his direction is full of baroque and dreamlike images. Bresson’s film is minimalist. He erases numerous characters, condenses space and plays down the epic. Bodies are fragmented, filmed in metonymic shots that obscure their faces. Soundtrack is emphasized. Bresson rejects the spectacular and highlights the failure of the quest for the Grail and the impossibility of love between Guinevere and Lancelot, a superhuman hero plagued by doubt and whose inevitable death is de-dramatized.

Re-inventing the Warrior Image in Time of Peace: Survival or Nostalgia?  / Anne-Hélène Miller (Associate Professor, University of Tennessee, Riggsby Director of the Marco Institute (US)

Combat attire and armor became an outward display of social status in the Ancien Regime and the Restoration of the Monarchy in France. The image of the warrior elite was associated with the establishment of peace and unity. This paper will ask whether such a reinvention of the medieval warrior image in post-medieval times was a matter of caste survival or nostalgia. And, can the highly sophisticated design of clothing and equipment of the samurai, as found for instance in the famous Picture Books of Medieval Warriors (1836) illustrated by K. Hokusai during the peaceful time of the Edo period in Japan find commonalities with the transformation of the purpose and representation of the warrior caste in Western Europe?

Evolution of the Demon-Hunting Warrior Figure: A Study of the Representation in the Shutendôji Narrative / Delphine Mulard (Associate professor at the University of Strasbourg (France)

The narrative of the Shutendôji portrays a warrior from the 10th century, Minamoto no Yorimitsu (or Raikô (944-1021) subduing an ogre, the Shutendôji, who abducted aristocratic women to devour them. The story achieved immense success during the Edo period as it demonstrated the superiority of warriors over the aristocratic world. The objective is to demonstrate how the Shutendôji narrative serves the political and symbolic ambitions of warriors during the Muromachi period in their quest for cultural legitimacy. We will also explore how this narrative persisted during the Edo period and how the image of the warrior was propagated through new illustrations.

Macbeth, from the Improbable Scottish Middle Ages to the Baroque Fable among the Samurai / Cong Minh Vu (Doctor, Catholic University of Lille (France)

From the same Shakespeare play, Macbeth, two completely different interpretations were taken in barely ten years from two immense filmmakers, Orson Welles (1948) and Akira Kurosawa (1957). If Welles insisted on highlighting the text, even if it meant inventing new diction and even cutting up and sometimes reworking the text, Kurosawa ignores the language of the Bard in order to preserve the plot. In this article, we therefore wish to compare the staging of these two masterpieces to bring to light their specific issues, which nevertheless come together in an eminently moral concern.

[Appel à communication] Samouraïs et chevaliers à l’écrit et l’écran (16-17 oct. 2025)

Appel à contributions / Call For Papers

Conférence internationale à l’Université de Poitiers

16-17 octobre 2025

Samouraïs et chevaliers à l’écrit et l’écran,

cultures des mondes médiévaux et de la première modernité : regards croisés sur les enjeux historiques, mythologiques et artistiques

 Samurai and Knights, Medieval and Early Modern Worlds East and West in Texts and Films: Inter-Cultural Echoes and Historical, Mythological and Aesthetic Perspectives

 Université de Poitiers & Université de Paris Sorbonne-Nouvelle Laboratoires de recherche CESCM (UMR 7302) & PRISMES (EA 4398)

SCROLL DOWN FOR ENGLISH

 Ce colloque international propose d’explorer les points de jonction ou passerelles culturelles, les différences et/ou les similitudes essentielles dans le monde oriental et occidental de la période médiévale et de la première modernité tels que représentés dans les productions artistiques, littéraires, picturales et cinématographiques. Si les aires d’exploration sont larges, une place prépondérante est accordée au Japon pour l’Orient, sans pour autant exclure la Perse ou l’Asie (Inde et Chine), ainsi qu’à l’Europe anglaise, septentrionale et méditerranéenne pour l’Ouest.

Le premier volet, consacré aux définitions et aux repérages chronologiques, s’attachera à cerner l’étude des grandes valeurs sociales, politiques et culturelles prévalant à ces périodes. Si les termes « médiéval » et « de la première modernité » s’appliquent tout autant au monde oriental qu’à l’occident, ils peuvent néanmoins être à géométrie variable selon les approches adoptées par les historiens et les pays ou les parties du monde concernées.

Comment définir le « Japon médiéval » ? On peut parler d’une période globalement inscrite entre l’ère Heian ou ère impériale (710-1185) et celle de l’unification du Japon opérée par la dynastie des Tokugawa à l’ère Edo (1603-1868), du Japon des samouraïs (1336-1573) ou encore de Japon féodal, et envisager l’organisation sociale hiérarchisée selon laquelle les chefs de clan, les daimyos et leurs guerriers samouraï imposent leur loi sur le territoire avant celle imposée par les shoguns.

On pourra donc s’interroger sur la notion même de « médiéval » (ou de « médiévalité »), se demander comment elle est liée à une série d’événements historiques et culturels marquant les grandes étapes de l’évolution humaine des collectivités concernées. Il s’agira de voir comment cette notion peut s’envisager comme une question d’état d’esprit, de valeurs ou d’éthique(s) plus que de simple chronologie. Si les samouraïs sont de grands guerriers, ils représentent également l’élite sociale, prônent des valeurs élevées (honneur, bravoure, loyauté, sens du sacrifice de soi) et sont adeptes d’arts dramatiques nobles (le théâtre Nô). La période plus largement qualifiée de période de la première modernité (1600-1800), puis le bakufu (fin de la période Edo, à la limite extrême de notre période d’analyse) voit le déclin progressif de la caste jusqu’à sa disparition à l’ère Meiji également marquée par l’émergence de nouvelles organisations sociales et culturelles.

Les productions artistiques locales, écrits, peintures ou films (films historiques, films de chambara, de samouraï ou jidaigeki), offrent de très nombreux échos de ces périodes, notamment le sengoku jidai ou Âge du pays en guerre (1467-1573) et la période pré-Edo (1573-1600), ainsi au cinéma les chefs d’œuvre d’Akira Kurosawa (Les Sept Samouraïs, Kumonosu jo / Le Château de l’Araignée, La Forteresse cachée, Kagemusha, Ran) ou de Kenji Mizoguchi (Les Amants crucifiés, Ugetsu / Contes de la lune vague après la pluie), ou encore son Chûshingura / Les Quarante-sept ronins pour la période Edo plus tardive, également souvent représentée dans les estampes du 18e siècle.

On pourra également s’intéresser à l’occident médiéval et de la première modernité selon une perspective historique, à aborder les questions relatives à la chevalerie, ce que l’on en connaît, les mythes et les légendes qui lui sont attachées, leurs représentations dans les textes, peintures ou films (Excalibur,

John Boorman), ou les valeurs éthiques qu’elle glorifie et qui définissent l’esprit de la chevalerie, en fait proche de l’esprit samouraï malgré les différences immédiates.

Le deuxième volet sera consacré à l’artiste et à son sens de l’histoire via une approche biographique et esthétique. Il s’agira de voir comment l’artiste-auteur d’hier et d’aujourd’hui — qu’il soit poète (haiku), romancier ou conteur de légendes, homme de théâtre, peintre, graveur d’estampes ou cinéaste — rend manifeste sa propre conscience de l’histoire, ce qu’il sait ou pressent de son époque ou du passé historique et légendaire, et comment il parvient à représenter son expérience et sa vision du monde par le biais d’un mode de représentation artistique propre. La représentation artistique permet également toutes variantes éthiques. On distinguera les perspectives résolument topiques et locales (Seppuku / Harakiri, Masaki Kobayashi) de celles qui se veulent plus générales et « universalisantes » (Kurosawa, Shakespeare et les adaptations occidentales).

Le troisième volet portera sur le rôle des mythologies en tant que marqueurs culturels fort(s des deux mondes, marqueurs locaux, ou plus larges, tendant vers l’universel : les bestiaires et les grandes figures mythologiques transversales (araignée, renard, loup), les sorciers et les sorcières, les grandes notions spirituelles,comme le bouddhisme et le sens de l’éphémère ou de la transcendance pour l’humain et la nature (mujô), ou les approches artistiques variées liées à la représentation de la nature. On pourra envisager ce qui pourrait relier les grands mythes humains, le Fatum grec, l’animisme shinto et le transcendantalisme occidental, la Roue de la Fortune de la Renaissance et la Roue de la Vie ou Roue de l’Être bouddhiste. Peut-on dès lors parler de choc des cultures ? Au-delà des différences immédiates, peut- on tisser la trame de schémas éthiques et philosophiques communs, d’une « trans-éthique », et de formes d’humanisme universelles ?

On pourra donc s’interroger sur :

  • Les aspects matériels des cultures médiévale et de la première modernité, est et ouest : artefacts, armes et armures, objets de culte réels et/ou représentés.
  • Les rites et pratiques quotidiennes, religieuses et culturelles des classes sociales et groupes concernés.
  • Les valeurs spirituelles ou ambiguïtés éthiques, notamment concernant le samouraï ou le ronin, le samouraï sans maître ; les différences et les équivalences avec les croyances et les valeurs des
  • Le film historique et légendaire dans les contextes médiévaux et post-médiévaux asiatiques (Inde et Chine).
  • Les apports esthétiques et éthiques spécifiques à la représentation picturale et cinématographique pour la construction du légendaire ou la reconstitution réaliste, ou les deux simultanément.

Les communications de vingt-cinq minutes maximum, en anglais ou en français, seront suivies d’une discussion d’une dizaine de minutes avec le public.

Une sélection de ces communications pourra donner lieu à une publication.

Une présentation bio-bibliographique (250 mots maximum) et un abstract (de 500 mots maximum), en anglais et en français, sont à envoyer avant fin mars 2024 à :

Anne-Marie Costantini-Cornède : amccde@gmail.com

& Pascale Drouet : pascale.drouet@univ-poitiers.fr

Attention mails modifiés ! merci de renvoyer vos appels avec ces mails


Samurai and Knights, Medieval and Early Modern Worlds East and West in Texts and Films: Inter-Cultural Echoes and Historical, Mythological and Aesthetic Perspectives

 

This international conference explores the cultural differences, similarities and potential bridges between the eastern and western worlds as envisaged during the medieval and early modern periods, including their represention in art, texts and legends, poetry, and pictorial and cinematographic productions. Since the areas of investigation are expansive, Japan is granted a primary place as the pivotal axis for the eastern world. This does exclude Persia, India or China. The northern, English and Mediterranean European areas will primarily represent the occidental world.

The conference’s first section will examine time periods and the main chronological landmarks. It will focus on the major cultural, social, political and ethical values prevailing at the times. Though the expressions “medieval” and “early modern” are used for both the east and west, they bear different meanings according to the specific approaches adopted by historians or the various countries or parts of the world concerned. What does the expression “Medieval Japan” actually mean then?

By and large, the period concerned may be included between the Imperial or Heian era (710-1185) and the Edo era, when the Tokugawa dynasty (1603-1868) unified Japan after a long period of clannish wars. One may also speak of “samurai Japan” (1336-1573) or feudal Japan as social issues may be raised as well, and the expressions related to specific political and socio-cultural organisations, namely how the daimyos or warlords and their samurai-warriors imposed their law before the shoguns could impose their own, new order.

Addressing these questions thus implies investigating the shades of meaning conveyed by the very term “medieval” (and, one could also say at times, ‘medievalism’), as a concept connected to the historical and cultural events that represent the major landmarks of great social and human evolutions. The matter should thus be tackled in terms of cultural attitudes, a sum of values and ethics, rather than merely a matter of chronology. If the samurai were indeed seen as instrumental in war and as a caste of glorious warriors grounding their feats on basic virtues and values (honour, bravery, loyalty, and the sense of self-sacrifice), they also represented a social elite perfectly learned in high – brow cultural arts like the Noh drama. Their power gradually declined during the early modern period, notably the bakufu (at the very end of the Edo era, the limit of our area of investigation) until they finally disappeared as a caste in the Meiji or “Enlightenment” era, itself featured by the emergence of new social and cultural organisations.

Local artistic productions, texts, paintings or (historical, samurai or jidaigeki) films, give us echoes and provide us with many viewpoints on such periods, namely the sengoku jidai or the Warring States period (1467-1573) and the pre-Edo one (1573-1600) in jidaigeki masterpieces like Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood / Castle of the Spider’s Web, The Hidden Fortress, Kagemusha, Ran, or Kenji Mizoguchi’s Crucified Lovers, Ugetsu. The Edo, later period is also often represented in films (Mizoguchi’s famous Chûshingura / The Forty-Seven Ronin) as well as eighteenth-century prints.

This section will also address the medieval and early modern western worlds, the question of knights and knighthood and their related history, myths and legends, their representations in paintings, engravings or films (Excalibur, John Boorman), as well as the main spiritual and ethical values, which defined the spirit of knighthood and which perhaps were not entirely dissimilar to the samurai spirit beyond the most obvious material differences.

The second part will address the artist’s sense of history via a biographical and aesthetic approach. It will analyse how the artist of the past or today, the poet (haiku), the novelist or tale-teller, the play- writer, the painter, engraver or printer, and the filmmaker (the screenwriter or the director) is able to impart their own perception of the history of his time or of the past; it will also consider the ways they choose to represent their experience and vision of the world by means of their own artistic language. Various modes of representations may allow artists to convey subtle ethical variations. Historical perspectives may be differentiated, for instance between those that appear resolutely topical and local (Seppuku, Masaki Kobayashi) and those that convey more general or universal viewpoints (Kurosawa, his Shakespeare & Western adaptations).

The third part concerns the roles played by mythologies as primary cultural landmarks for both the east and west, and whether they may be seen as strictly local or wider and more universal. It addresses bestiaries and the major mythological figures (spiders, wolves, foxes), witches and sorcerers, and major spiritual notions like Buddhism and the sense of the ephemeral and transience regarding human nature (mujô) or the various artistic hues and ways to apprehend landscapes and nature. Great human myths will be considered or how they may be fundamentally differentiated and / or connected: Shinto animism and Western transcendentalism, the Greek Fatum, The Renaissance Wheel of Fortune and the Buddhist Wheel of Life and Wheel of Being…

May one then still speak of cultural gaps or shocks? Beyond immediate differences, could bridges be established? Could common philosophical schemata and ethics (or “trans-ethics”) or universal forms of humanism be delineated?

One may thus consider:

  • Material aspects of the medieval and early modern cultures east and west: the artefacts, weaponry and armours, and cult objects, whether they are real and / or
  • The every-day rites and cultural or religious practices of the social classes or groups
  • Spiritual values or ethical ambiguities, namely concerning the samurai and the “ronin” (masterless samurai), the differences and/or similarities with the beliefs and values held by medieval knights.
  • The historical and legendary film set in medieval and post-medieval Asian contexts (India and China).
  • The ethical and aesthetic dimensions brought by the pictorial and cinematographic representation, notably how the legendary is construed or constructed and/or realistic reconstitutions, or both simultaneously.

Papers, in French or English, will not exceed twenty-five minutes. Oral presentations will be followed by a ten-minute discussion with the public.

A selection of papers may be published later.

Proposals (500 words maximum) with a short bio-bibliography (250 words maximum) indicating your affiliation and research interests should be sent by late March 2024 to

Anne-Marie Costantini-Cornède : amccde@gmail.com

& Pascale Drouet : pascale.drouet@univ-poitiers.fr

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Bibliographie sélective / Selective bibliography

ADDISS Stephen, GROEMER Gerald and RIMER J. Thomas, Traditional Japanese Arts and Culture, Honolulu, University of Hawai‘i Press, 2006.

ASHKENAZI Michael, Handbook of Japanese Mythology [2003], New York, OUP, 2008.

AURELL Martin et PASTOUREAU Michel, Chevaliers de la Table ronde, Romans arthuriens, Paris, Gallimard, 2022.

BLOCH Marc, La Société féodale, 2 vol., 1e éd. 1939-1949 (1 chapitre en vol. 2), rééd. en 1 vol., Paris, Albin Michel, 1994.

BUCHANAN Judith, Shakespeare on Film, Harlow, Pearson Longman, 2005.

CAMPBELL Joseph, The Masks of God: Oriental Mythology, and The Masks of Go : Occidental Mythology, New York, Penguin Arkan Series, 1962 & 1964.

CARON François, Le puissant royaume du Japon, 1636 : la description de François Caron, Introduction, trad. et notes de Jacques et Marianne Proust, Paris, Chandeigne, 2018.

DE CASTRO Xavier (éd.), La Découverte du Japon 1543-1552, Paris, Chandeigne, 2017.

COSTANTINI-CORNEDE Anne-Marie, Kurosawa, Shakespeare and Others: Art and the Human Experience, Paris, Michel Houdiard, 2023.

DAVIES Roger J., Japanese Culture: The Religious and Philosophical Foundations, Tokyo, Rutland, Singapore, 2016.

DAVIES & IKENO (eds.), The Japanese Mind: Understanding Contemporary Japanese Culture, Tuttle, 2002.

GALBRAITH Stuart IV, The Emperor and the Wolf: The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune, London & New York, Faber & Faber, 2002.

GALBRAITH Stuart IV, Le Cinéma japonais, Paris, Taschen, 2009.

EHRLICH Linda & DESSER David (eds.), Cinematic Landscapes: Observations on the Visual Arts and Cinema of China and Japan, Austin, University of Texas Press, 1994.

ELLISSEFF, Danièle & Vadime, La Civilisation japonaise, Paris, Arthaud, 1974.

FUJIKI Hideaki & PHILLIPS Alastair (eds.), The Japanese Cinema Book, London, Bloomsbury/British Film Institute Publishing, 2020.

JACKSON Russell (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film, 3rd ed., Cambridge, CUP, 2020.

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KEENE Donald (ed.), The Pleasures of Japanese Literature, New York, Columbia University Press, 1988.

KERR ALEX, Lost Japan: Last Glimpse of Beautiful Japan, London, Penguin Books, 2015.

LE FANU Mark, Mizoguchi and Japan, London, British Film Institute Publishing, 2005.

McDONALD Keiko, Cinema East: A Critical Study of Major Japanese Films, East Brunswick, New Jersey, Associated University Presses, 1983.

MELLEN Joan, The Waves at Genji’s Door: Japan Through Its Cinema, New York, Pantheon Books, 1976.

MELLEN Joan, Les Sept samouraïs [trad. de Seven Samurai, London, BFI Publishing, 2002], Paris, Akileos, 2016.

PASTOUREAU Michel, La Vie quotidienne en France et en Angleterre au temps des chevaliers de la Table ronde, Paris, Hachette Littératures, 1976.

PRINCE Stephen, The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa: The Warrior’s Camera, 2nd ed., Princeton, Princeton UP, 1999.

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RICHIE Donald, The Films of Akira Kurosawa, 3rd expanded ed. with new pref., Berkeley & Los Angeles, California University Press, 1998.

RICHIE Donald, A Tractate on Japanese Aesthetics, Berkeley (CA), Stone Bridge Press, 2007.

SATO Tadao, Currents in Japanese Cinema, New York, Harper & Row, 1982.

SATO Tadao, Le Cinéma japonais (2 vols.), Paris, Centre George Pompidou, 1997.

SILVER Alain, The Samurai Film, 2nd ed., New York, Woodstock, The Overlook Press, 2005.

SOUYRI Pierre-François, Les guerriers dans la rizière. La grande épopée des samouraïs, Paris, Flammarion, coll. « Au fil de l’histoire », 2017.

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SOUYRI Pierre-François, Histoire du Japon médiéval. Le monde à l’envers, Paris, Perrin, 2013.

SOUYRI Pierre-François et Saeki SHIN’ICHI, Samouraïs. Du dit des heiké à l’invention du bushidô, Paris, Arkhê, 2017.

SOUYRI Pierre-François, et Rosa CAROLI, History at Stake in East Asia, Venise, Cafoscarina, 2012.

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WATTS Alan, Taoism: Way Beyond Seeing, Tokyo, Tuttle, 1997.

YOMOTA Inuhiko, What is Japanese Cinema?: A History, New York, Columbia University Press, 2019.

YOSHIMOTO Mitsuhiro, Kurosawa: Films Studies and Japanese Cinema, Durham, Duke University Press, 2000.

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Semaines d’études médiévales 2013 – Conférence de Martin Aurell

« Joyeuse », l’épée du sacre des rois de France, est le point de départ qu’a choisi par Martin Aurell, professeur d’histoire à l’Université de Poitiers et membre du CESCM, pour commencer sa conférence sur « Le glaive : symboles et société » prononcée dans le cadre des Semaines d’études médiévales.

290px-Epée_JoyeuseAu cours de cet exposé, préambule à une recherche de grande envergure, Martin Aurell a proposé deux axes de réflexion : d’abord, un aperçu des mythes et des croyances anciennes, héritage culturel symboliquement riche sur lequel s’ancrent certaines pratiques sociales de l’épée au Moyen Âge ; ensuite, le discours de l’Église le glaive et ses usages.

La première partie de la conférence de Martin Aurell était consacrée à une approche comparatiste faisant dialoguer les mythologies grecque, latine, scandinave et germanique avec la littérature médiévale, principalement la matière arthurienne. En accordant une place importante au merveilleux (avec des découvertes surnaturelles d’épées, véritables talismans confiés à un héros qui s’identifie complètement à son arme), ces récits dénotent un attachement affectif très fort de la part du guerrier à son glaive, symbole de sa force et de sa légitimité, mais aussi de celles de son lignage. Offerte en gage, en garantie ou en cadeau, l’épée traverse le temps et l’espace de la fiction médiévale.

Dans un deuxième temps, et en partant de la belle plaque émaillée du tombeau de Geoffroy, aujourd’hui au Musée du Mans, Martin Aurell a analysé quelques-uns des discours produits par le milieu ecclésiastique sur l’épée, en particulier sur les épées mentionnées dans le Nouveau Testament et la naissance de théorie des deux glaives. Martin Aurell montre ainsi que l’épée des mythes est peu à peu christianisée. Elle acquiert un pouvoir et une fonction spirituels ; elle sert l’Église dans la propagation de la foi et la lutte contre les infidèles ou les hérésies.

Richement illustré, appuyé sur un dossier textuel très fourni, l’exposé de Martin Aurell a encore une fois démontré l’ampleur des connaissances de son auteur, notamment dans la matière littéraire, ses qualités d’orateur et la richesse des questionnements formulés.

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