The Neo-Buddhist Writings of Lafcadio Hearn: Light from the East by Antony Goedhals offers radical rereadings of a misunderstood and undervalued Victorian writer. It reveals that at the metaphysical core of Lafcadio Hearn’s writings is a Buddhist vision as yet unappreciated by his critics and biographers. Beginning with the American writings and ending with the essay- and story-meditations of the Japanese period, the book demonstrates Hearn’s deeply personal and transcendently beautiful evocations of a Buddhist universe, and shows how these deconstruct and dissolve the categories of Western discourse and thinking about reality – to create a new language, a poetry of vastness, emptiness, and oneness that had not been heard before in English, or, indeed, in the West.

The fin de siècle witnessed an extensive and heated debate about cosmopolitanism, which transformed readers' attitudes towards national identity, foreign literatures, translation, and the idea of world literature. Focussing on literature written in English, Literary Cosmopolitanism in the English Fin de Siècle offers a critical examination of cosmopolitanism as a distinctive feature of the literary modernity of this important period of transition. No longer conceived purely as an abstract philosophical ideal, cosmopolitanism--or world citizenship--informed the actual, living practices of authors and readers who sought new ways of relating local and global identities in an increasingly interconnected world. The book presents literary cosmopolitanism as a field of debate and controversy. While some writers and readers embraced the creative, imaginative, emotional, and political potentials of world citizenship, hostile critics denounced it as a politically and morally suspect ideal, and stressed instead the responsibilities of literature towards the nation. In this age of empire and rising nationalism, world citizenship came to enshrine a paradox: it simultaneously connoted positions of privilege and marginality, connectivity and non-belonging. Chapters on Oscar Wilde, Lafcadio Hearn, George Egerton, the periodical press, and artificial languages bring to light the variety of literary responses to the idea of world citizenship that proliferated at the turn of the twentieth century. The book interrogates cosmopolitanism as a liberal ideology that celebrates human diversity and as a social identity linked to worldliness; it investigates its effect on gender, ethics, and the emotions. It presents the literature of the fin de siècle as a dynamic space of exchange and mediation, and argues that our own approach to literary studies should become less national in focus.

This book provides a comprehensive and field-defining examination of the study of religions in Ireland. By bringing together some of the foremost experts on religions in an Irish context, it critically traces the development of an important field of study and evaluates the thematic threads that have emerged as significant. It thereby offers an assessment of contemporary religions in Ireland and their relationships to society, culture, economics, politics and the State. Contributors make connections between topics as diverse as Ireland's Revolutionary Period, the formation of the Irish State, the decline of Catholicism, the rise of migrant religions and New Religious Movements and the effects of secularisation on religions and society. This book emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of the study of religions whilst illustrating the coherent themes that have shaped the development of the field in Ireland, making it unique.

This will appeal to anyone wishing to enrich their understanding of Japan, those with an interest in Hearn, Irish literary tradition and life and literature in a cross-cultural context.

The Kyoto School and International Relations explores the Kyoto School’s challenge to transcend the ‘Western’ domination over the ‘rest’ of the world, and the issues this raises for contemporary ‘non-Western’ and ‘Global IR’ literature. Was the support of Kyoto School thinkers inevitable due to the despotism of military government, thus nothing to do with their philosophy, or a logical extension of their philosophical engagement? The book answers this question by investigating individual Kyoto School philosophers in detail. The author argues that any attempts to transcend the ‘West’ are destined to be drawn into power politics as far as they uncritically adopt and use the prevailing ontological concept of linear progressive time and dominant meta-narrative of Westphalia. Thus, to fully understand this problem, there is the need to be cautious of the power of language of Westphalia and the concept of time in IR. Aimed at students and scholars of IR theory, Japanese politics and East Asian IR in general, this book provides some introductory explanations of these academic subjects, developing a theory based on the concepts of time and language of Kyoto School philosophy.

"Knowing Japan and the Japanese better," Louis Frédéric states in the introduction to this encyclopedia, "is one of the necessities of modern life." The Japanese have a profound knowledge of every aspect and detail of Western societies. Unfortunately, we in the West cannot say the same about our knowledge of Japan. We tend to see Japan through a veil of exoticism, as a land of ancient customs and exquisite arts; or we view it as a powerful contributor to the global economy, the source of cutting-edge electronics and innovative management techniques. To go beyond these clichés, we must begin to see how apparently contradictory aspects of modern Japanese culture spring from the country's evolution through more than two millennia of history. This richly detailed yet concise encyclopedia is a guide to the full range of Japanese history and civilization, from the dawn of its prehistory to today, providing clear and accessible information on society and institutions, commerce and industry, sciences, sports, and politics, with particular emphasis on religion, material culture, and the arts. The volume is enhanced by maps and illustrations, along with a detailed chronology of more than 2,000 years of Japanese history and a comprehensive bibliography. Cross-references and an index help the reader trace themes from one article to the next. Japan Encyclopedia will be an indispensable one-volume reference for students, scholars, travelers, journalists, and anyone who wishes to learn more about the past and present of this great world civilization.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields: Studies of Hand and Soul in the Far East" by Lafcadio Hearn. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

This classic text about Buddhism in Japan by Lafcadio Hearn--on of the first Westerns to write about Japan--will be of great interests to scholars and Japanophiles alike. Lafcadio Hearn's books continue to charm and captivate readers, as the exotic subjects about which he wrote charmed and captivated him. Gleanings In Buddha-Fields presents more Hearn magic as he enters into the spirit of Buddhism as though he were born into it. Hearn says that if he were a god, dwelling in some old Izumo shrine on the summit of a hill, then "as air to the bird, as water to the fish, so would all substance be permeable to the essence of me. I should pass at will into the walls of my dwelling to swim in the long gold bath of a sunbeam, to thrill in the heart of a flower, to ride on the neck of a dragonfly." He writes of a trip to Kyoto, telling of hazy autumn rice fields, with dragonflies darting over the drooping grain; maples crimsoning above a tremendous gorge; ranges of peaks steeped in morning mist; and a peasant's cottage perched on the verge of some dizzy mountain road.

Why has no one ever written on the art of academic lecturing and its many notable triumphs? In some quarters new educational canons have spoken an emphatic condemnation of the college lecture, and it would seem to be high time to consider its value, as illustrative of an art about to be lost, if not as exemplary of forces to be retained, even if modified. Are not our college class-rooms, in being robbed of the old-time lecture, and getting instead a science-brief of data and bibliography, being deprived also of that literary atmosphere which once pervaded them? We are unquestionably gaining in thoroughness; but are we gaining in thoughtfulness? We are giving to many youths an insight, it may be profound, into specialties; but are we giving any of them a broad outlook? There was too often a paralysis of dulness in the old lecture, or, rather, in the old lecturer; and written lectures, like history and fashion in dress, have an inveterate tendency to repeat themselves; but, on the contrary, there was often a wealth of power also in the studied discourse of strong men. Masters bent upon instructing and inspiring—and there were many such—had to penetrate that central secret of literature and spoken utterance—the secret of style. Their only instrument of conquest was the sword of penetrating speech. Some of the subtlest and most lasting effects of genuine oratory have gone forth from secluded lecture desks into the hearts of quiet groups of students; and it would seem to be good policy to endure much indifferent lecturing—watchful trustees might reduce it to a minimum—for the sake of leaving places open for the men who have in them the inestimable force of chastened eloquence. For one man who can impart an undying impulse there are several score, presupposing the requisite training, who can impart a method; and here is the well understood ground for the cumulating disfavor of college lecturing and the rapid substitution of ‘laboratory drill.’ But will not higher education be cut off from communion with the highest of all forces, the force of personal inspiration in the field of great themes of thought, if you interdict the literary method in the class-room? I am not inclined to consume very many words in insisting on this point, for I believe that educators are now dealing more frankly with themselves than ever before, and that so obvious a point will by no means escape full recognition before reformed methods of college and university instruction take their final shape. But it is very well to be thinking explicitly about the matter meanwhile, in order that the lecture may be got ready to come fully militant into the final battle for territory. The best way to compass this end would seem to be, to study the art of the old masters of learned discourse. With Lanfranc one could get the infinite charm of the old monastic school life; with Abelard, the undying excitement of philosophical and religious controversy; with Colet, the fire of reforming zeal; with Blackstone, the satisfactions of clarified learning. But Bee and Paris and Oxford have by no means monopolized the masters of this art, and I should prefer, for the nonce at least, to choose an exemplar from Scotland, and speak of Adam Smith. It will, no doubt, be possible to speak of him without going over again the well worn ground of the topics usually associated with his great fame.