New podcast! We talk to Harriet & Rob Fraser, environmental artist working collectively as SOMEWHERE NOWHERE about their place-based walking practices in #Cumbria #LakeDistrict
shorturl.at/NHHjI
#Poetry #Photography #Walking #Art #Placemaking
@calebscarter.bsky.social
Had to get the iconic rural train rattling past sakura in full bloom shot
Still wondering if inequality is out of control?
New podcast! We talk to Harriet & Rob Fraser, environmental artist working collectively as SOMEWHERE NOWHERE about their place-based walking practices in #Cumbria #LakeDistrict
shorturl.at/NHHjI
#Poetry #Photography #Walking #Art #Placemaking
@drpennybradshaw.bsky.social
Which do you prefer? The culturally significant sites, preserved from any alterations, or the ‘insignificant’ sites, plastered with senshafuda and other things that people leave behind? Which would compel you to visit Shinshōji?
Well, structures without them are designated as significant cultural properties (重要文化財), and altering them in any way is not allowed (not to mention culturally taboo). But off the beaten path, you find them tucked away—everywhere. Unassuming gates門, small shrines, even some bigger halls (阿弥陀堂など).
Here’s some, and more here, and here! Why tons in some spots and zero in others?
Ahh, signs prohibiting them. Explains it. Wait, what’s this…
Hunting senshafuda 千社札 today at the famous pilgrimage temple grounds of Naritasan Shinshōji 成田山新勝寺.
[Dad voiceover] Hmm… for such a famous temple, where are the senshafuda…
Wow! I’ll have to look that up. Sounds like an interesting project of your student’s
Ooh he looks like fine 😆. I’ll have to look into his expeditions
Now it just needs to get written... (so if you have thoughts or sources on the subject, send them my way!)
One of the many cool journal covers of the Japanese Alpine Club, this one from issue 2, 1914
I've signed a contract with Princeton University Press for my next book! Tentatively "Ascendance: Mountain Climbing and Spirituality in Modern Japan," I'll look at the passage of mountaineering from England to Japan in the early 20th c, esp. on various modern spiritualities that emerged through it.
The review appears in the latest issue of Japanese Religions. Congrats to guest editor Or Porath, editor Esben Petersen and all contributors on the second installment of a ‘full-bodied’ treatment of religious thought and practice in Japan. Excited to dive in. nccisjpnew.wixsite.com/nccisjp/volu...
Thanks to Bruce Winkleton for the kind review! It focused on the narrative analysis in the book, a pet passion and something an earlier version of the manuscript centered, until I pulled it back and refocused on Shugendō’s historical development (albeit via its frequent shaping through narrative).
This is an amazing resource if you’re on the academic job market, or teaching grad students, in East Asian humanities. All thanks to the voluntary efforts of @paularcurtis.bsky.social 👏👏👏
prcurtis.com/projects/job...
Day break in Itoshima, Japan
Join us for our first podcast! We talk with the amazing Alexandra Cotofana about landscape sentience in the Romanian Carpathians and the concept of xenophobic mountains.
shorturl.at/DfOrj
@calmandfearless.bsky.social @adambutterworth.bsky.social @katie-r-ives.bsky.social @annamfleming.bsky.social
His air tag eventually placed him back at the car (a few kilometers away!), though as I neared him (albeit still out of sight but with olfactory proximity?), he raced back to greet me.
Being in the company of my dog Finn heightened my awareness of sensory perceptions (discussed by Ingold)—sound and smell being most acute for him, unlike sight for us. Contemplation took a back seat as I came off the summit and realized he was gone.
After two days of immersing myself in Tim Ingold’s theories of movement through landscapes, I made an impromptu decision to move through my own for some contemplation in practice of his ideas. Mount Kaya is a dormant volcano overlooking the Genkai coast, 15 minutes from the house.
In the age of Instagram, increasing mountaineering accidents (worldwide) and in Austria, legal implications over a recent tragedy.
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/20/w...
Excited to welcome Jolyon Thomas on Monday! For those in Fukuoka…
Details here www.imapkyudai.net/events
As one calligrapher reflected at the end of the day, “above all, we need to make it fun; otherwise there’s no reason to continue.” On that note, a wonderful execution.
The day beautifully showcased Edo-based craft culture and those who carry it forward. How they will continue—and flourish—was a question raised throughout the day. It’s an anxiety that hovers over communities dedicated to traditional practices in Japan amidst an aging and rapidly changing society.
The gathering was commemorated with original woodblock prints. Calligraphers, illustrators, woodblock carvers, and printers led the event and the production of the prints. Zōshōji, a major temple whose legacy is intertwined with the Edo period and its shoguns, provided the perfect venue.
Over the weekend, I got the chance to attend a gathering of senshafuda clubs and firefighter brigades celebrating 100 years since the start of the Showa period. Called a nōsatsu ōgai 納札大會 (“great gathering [for the exchange of] votive prints”), this was apparently the first of its kind since 1921.
I’m with you there, but at the same, I think we should ask what constitutes the f***ing. Btw, I’m not taking a side here, as there’s much left out of the reporting
Sacred sites around the world have often been shaped by competing interests and plural traditions—Japan included. Cultural properties protections are meant to preserve the site, but this can pit structure against practice in unforeseen ways. Is the legal system equipped to answer these questions?
What’s considered practice; what’s considered vandalism? Should it rest on who performs the act, or on what their faith is?