Navigating Deep River
New Perspectives on Shusaku Endo's Final Novel
Published on 1. April 2020
Book
Hardback
350 pages
978-1-4384-7797-8 (ISBN)
Description
An interdisciplinary dialogue with Shusaku Endo's last novel offering new perspectives on Japanese culture, Christian doctrine, Hindu spiritualities, and Buddhist worldviews.
In Navigating Deep River, Mark W. Dennis and Darren J. N. Middleton have curated a wide-ranging discussion of Shusaku Endo's final novel, Deep River, in which four careworn Japanese tourists journey to India's holy Ganges in search of spiritual as well as existential renewal. Navigating Deep River evaluates and probes Endo's decades-long search to find the words to explain Transcendent Mystery, the difficult tension between faith and doubt, the purpose of spiritual journeys, and the challenges posed by the reality of religious pluralism in an increasingly diverse world. The contributors, including Van C. Gessel who translated Deep River into English in 1994, offer an engaged and patient exploration of this major text in world fiction, and this anthology promises to deepen academic appreciation for Endo, within and beyond the West.
In Navigating Deep River, Mark W. Dennis and Darren J. N. Middleton have curated a wide-ranging discussion of Shusaku Endo's final novel, Deep River, in which four careworn Japanese tourists journey to India's holy Ganges in search of spiritual as well as existential renewal. Navigating Deep River evaluates and probes Endo's decades-long search to find the words to explain Transcendent Mystery, the difficult tension between faith and doubt, the purpose of spiritual journeys, and the challenges posed by the reality of religious pluralism in an increasingly diverse world. The contributors, including Van C. Gessel who translated Deep River into English in 1994, offer an engaged and patient exploration of this major text in world fiction, and this anthology promises to deepen academic appreciation for Endo, within and beyond the West.
Reviews / Votes
"...this is a unified set of papers-both readable and intellectually enjoyable for those interested in modern Japanese literature, literary theology, and any aspect of Endo's life and work ... Highly recommended." - CHOICE"This volume contextualizes, delineates, and articulates the complex religious/theological/spiritual dimensions of Deep River and its rich intertextual, interpersonal, psychosocial, and literary aspects. There are few edited volumes in which so many experts focus on a single Japanese text in this sustained manner, and this stands as a model of how to do so deftly and productively." - David C. Stahl, author of Social Trauma, Narrative Memory and Recovery in Japanese Literature and Film
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Albany, NY
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
US School Grade: College Graduate Student and over
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
719 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4384-7797-8 (9781438477978)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Mark W. Dennis | Darren J. N. Middleton
Navigating Deep River
New Perspectives on Shusaku Endo's Final Novel
E-Book
04/2020
1st Edition
De Gruyter
from
€88.99
Available for download
Persons
At Texas Christian University, Mark W. Dennis is Professor of East Asian Religions. At Texas Christian University, Darren J. N. Middleton is John F. Weatherly Professor of Religion. They are the coeditors of Approaching Silence: New Perspectives on Shusaku Endo's Classic Novel. Dennis is also the translator of Prince Shotoku's Commentary on the Srimala Sutra, and Middleton has written and edited many other books, including George Eliot: Illuminated by the Message.
Content
Acknowledgments
Foreword: The Myths of Ganga
Julian Crandall Hollick
Introduction: A Novel We Have Loved
Mark W. Dennis and Darren J. N. Middleton
Part One: Historical and Comparative Approaches
1. Navigating Deep River through the Lens of Buddhist Thought
Mark W. Dennis
2. A Gaze Turned Inward: Perspectives from the Orient
Mini Chandran
3. Japan's Orient and Animal Theology in Endo Shusaku's Deep River
Zhange Ni
4. Religion and Violence in Deep River
Ronald Green
5. Endo Shusaku: The Long Road to the Deep River
Mark Williams
Part Two: Literary and Theological Approaches
6. Catholic Convergences in Deep River
Mark Bosco and Christopher Wachal
7. Shusaku Endo and Flannery O'Connor on the Grotesque
Elizabeth Cameron Galbraith
8. From "Catholic" to "catholic": Arriving at Deep River
Maeri Megumi
9. Deep River as Endo's Book of Job: Gathering a Community of Sufferers at the Water's Edge
Van C. Gessel
10. Mitsuko, That's Me: Autobiographical Space in Endo Shusaku's Final Novel
Justyna Weronika Kasza
11. Imagining India: Traversing Deep River with Enami and Otsu
P. A. George
12. Endo Shusaku and Religious Pluralism
Emi Mase-Hasegawa
13. Endo Shusaku's Process Panentheism
Darren J. N. Middleton
14. Japanese Sensibility, and Transcendence in Deep River
Dennis Hirota
Afterword: Deep and Wide: Tourists and Pilgrims in the Shallows
S. Brent Plate
For Further Reading
Contributors
Index
Foreword: The Myths of Ganga
Julian Crandall Hollick
Introduction: A Novel We Have Loved
Mark W. Dennis and Darren J. N. Middleton
Part One: Historical and Comparative Approaches
1. Navigating Deep River through the Lens of Buddhist Thought
Mark W. Dennis
2. A Gaze Turned Inward: Perspectives from the Orient
Mini Chandran
3. Japan's Orient and Animal Theology in Endo Shusaku's Deep River
Zhange Ni
4. Religion and Violence in Deep River
Ronald Green
5. Endo Shusaku: The Long Road to the Deep River
Mark Williams
Part Two: Literary and Theological Approaches
6. Catholic Convergences in Deep River
Mark Bosco and Christopher Wachal
7. Shusaku Endo and Flannery O'Connor on the Grotesque
Elizabeth Cameron Galbraith
8. From "Catholic" to "catholic": Arriving at Deep River
Maeri Megumi
9. Deep River as Endo's Book of Job: Gathering a Community of Sufferers at the Water's Edge
Van C. Gessel
10. Mitsuko, That's Me: Autobiographical Space in Endo Shusaku's Final Novel
Justyna Weronika Kasza
11. Imagining India: Traversing Deep River with Enami and Otsu
P. A. George
12. Endo Shusaku and Religious Pluralism
Emi Mase-Hasegawa
13. Endo Shusaku's Process Panentheism
Darren J. N. Middleton
14. Japanese Sensibility, and Transcendence in Deep River
Dennis Hirota
Afterword: Deep and Wide: Tourists and Pilgrims in the Shallows
S. Brent Plate
For Further Reading
Contributors
Index