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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

SSJR will be hosting a virtual book talk with @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social later this month. Open to the public, so please come join us! Registration link: furman.zoom.us/webinar/regi... Link to the book: uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/how-bu...

Poster for Dr. Bryan Lowe's talk for the Society for the Study of Japanese Religions, entitled "How to Know How Buddhism Spread in Japan, 650-850."
Abstract: In my new book, I argue that between 650 and 850 CE, Japan changed from a land largely without Buddhism to a country where Buddhist ideas, images, and practices were everywhere in what was arguably the most dramatic religious transformation in the country’s history. In this talk, I turn to sources and methods to introduce how we can know that this transformation took place. I introduce archaeological and manuscript evidence that have received virtually no attention in English that, in my view, allow for a radically new understanding of early Japanese religion, politics, and culture. The talk will look under the hood to show how scholars can combine material culture and texts to access forms of Buddhism otherwise lost in the historical record and tell new stories about the past.

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

I'll be presenting at the European Association for Japanese Studies next week! I'll be a panelist on Rel07 "Fieldwork at shrines: challenges and rewards" on Friday morning. Hope to see some of you there!

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Immediate reaction to the image: This is...a towel rack? What is this? Clicking through to the listing: IT'S 8' TALL????

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

SSJR will be hosting a book talk for Prof. Helen Hardacre's new book in 2 weeks! We hope to see some of you there! Info about the book: www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067... Register for the talk: furman.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

THE SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF JAPANESE RELIGIONS PRESENTS
A VIRTUAL BOOK TALK W/
DR. HELEN HARDACRE, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
HOSTED BY DR. DANA MIRSALIS, PACIFIC UNIVERSITY

TUE. APRIL 7
4PM U.S. PACIFIC TIME
7PM U.S. EASTERN TIME//
WED. APRIL 8
1AM CENTRAL EUROPEAN TIME
8AM JAPAN TIME

THIS TALK PROVIDES AN OVERVIEW OF DR. HARDACRE’S RECENT PUBLICATION, SHINTO SHRINES IN PREWAR AND WARTIME JAPAN, WITH AN IN-DEPTH LOOK AT MATERIAL CONCERNING A SHRINE PRIEST DURING THE PACIFIC WAR. MORE ON THE BOOK CAN BE FOUND HERE: HTTPS://WWW.HUP.HARVARD.EDU/BOOKS/9780674302594

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

How long are your class sessions? I know that the game says it can run in 2 hours but I have never managed to run it in less than 3. (Also, yay for integrating TTRPGs and LARP into pedagogy!)

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

SSJR is running another book talk! Please join us in two weeks for @sdahl.bsky.social's talk. Register here: furman.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Poster for upcoming virtual bookshop. Text:
THE SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF JAPANESE RELIGIONS PRESENTS
SHUGENDŌ AND TIME: AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF DEWA SANZAN

A VIRTUAL BOOK TALK W/
DR. SHAYNE DAHL, UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY

IN THIS TALK, DR. DAHL DISCUSSES KEY THEMES IN HIS FORTHCOMING BOOK, THE SECRET WORLD OF SHUGENDŌ: SACRED MOUNTAINS AND THE SEARCH FOR MEANING IN POST-DISASTER JAPAN (2025, UNC PRESS). DAHL MAKES THE CASE FOR ANTHROPOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO STUDYING CONTEMPORARY SHUGENDŌ AND JAPANESE RELIGIONS MORE BROADLY. DR, DAHL ALSO FOCUSES ON THE THEORETICAL SALIENCE OF TIME AS EXPRESSED THROUGH HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN LOCAL TOURISM AND MOUNTAIN ASCETIC TRAINING PROGRAMS, DURING ANNUAL MOUNTAIN ENTRY RITUALS, AND IN EXISTENTIAL REFLECTION FACILITATED BY THE CULTURE AND PRACTICE OF SHUGENDŌ IN THE POST-DISASTER PERIOD. DAHL ARGUES THAT SACRED MOUNTAINS SUCH AS DEWA SANZAN EMBODY SPATIOTEMPORAL ALTERITY WITHIN CAPITALIST MODERNITY AS THEY PROVIDE PEOPLE LIVING IN AN ANXIOUS PRESENT WITH A SPACE TO REFLECT ON AND RECONNECT WITH THE PAST, TO REJUVENATE THEIR OVERWORKED LIVES IN THE PRESENT, AND PRAY FOR A BRIGHTER FUTURE FOR JAPAN.

TUE. NOV. 11
6 PM U.S. PACIFIC TIME
9 PM U.S. EASTERN TIME
//
WED. NOV. 12
3 AM CENTRAL EUROPEAN TIME
10 AM JAPAN TIME

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

Miranda Pollock! For some reason she doesn't seem to have a faculty page on our uni website yet (???), but here's her academia.edu page: pacificu.academia.edu/MirandaPollock

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

SSJR is running its first virtual book talk next week! @orionklautau.bsky.social will lecturing on the enduring fascination with Shōtoku Taishi in 20th century Japan. Please join us! You can register for the Zoom webinar here: bit.ly/4mtw3qJ

THE SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF JAPANESE RELIGIONS PRESENTS
ANOTHER SHŌTOKU: HISTORY AND MYTHMAKING IN MODERN JAPANESE RELIGION
A VIRTUAL BOOK TALK W/ DR. ORION KLAUTAU
HOSTED BY DR. OR PORATH, TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY
This lecture examines the enduring fascination with the "true" image of Shōtoku Taishi (574-622) in twentieth-century Japan. By tracing the emergence of alternative historical narratives around him, it reveals how Shōtoku has been recast as both a symbol of religious and political importance and a romanticized figure endowed with supernatural power. The talk further explores how modern reinterpretations-spanning from the early twentieth century to the present-have woven together elements of occultism, mythology, and pseudo-history, forging new forms of storytelling that often blur the line between fact and fantasy. Engaging with a range of scholarly works and popular media, this presentation illustrates how these "alternative histories" have been crafted to appeal to both intellectual audiences and the broader public, reshaping Shōtoku's legacy and his role in the Japanese cultural imagination.
THU. JUNE 19
9AM JAPAN TIME
2AM CENTRAL EUROPEAN SUMMER TIME
WED. JUNE 18
8PM U.S. EASTERN
5PM U.S. PACIFIC
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Orion Klautau is Associate Professor at the Department of Japanese Religion and Intellectual History, Graduate School of International Cultural Studies, Tohoku University. His work focuses on the development of Japanese Buddhism in the modern period, with special emphasis on historiographical issues. Besides a number of articles in both English and Japanese, he is author of Kindai Nihon shisō toshite no bukkyō shigaku (Buddhist historiography as modern Japanese thought, Hōzōkan, 2012), and Kakusareta Shōtoku Taishi: Kingendai Nihon no gishi to okaruto bunka (Shōtoku Taishi Veiled:
Alternative Histories and Occulture in Modern Japan, Chikuma Shobō, 2024).

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

Oh, this is neat! Did you find that folks mostly went for the movies or did a lot of folks go for the games?

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

One of my students suggested that HBO should do a prestige historical drama about the Dōkyō Incident, which I have been thinking about non-stop ever since.

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

I split them into small groups based on shared themes to do their analysis together before we came back to talk about the larger trends we were noticing in the media we selected. (The big one was overrepresentation of the samurai, surprising no one.)

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

I had them pick something, they had to write a short statement to submit to me, and then put together a slide about it in our shared slide deck. They brainstormed some questions for analyzing historical depictions at the beginning of the week, and...

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

I don't have the skills to make it through the game, but I do really enjoy how hyped my students get to explain how what they learned in class is appearing in the games they've playing (and send me screenshots for future lectures!).

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

Oh, he didn't talk about the Portuguese at all, fascinating! He mostly wound up talking about how much Yoshiaki wound up being cast as much more of a mastermind pulling the strings, and why they might have made that choice narratively.

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

Students presented analysis of media they picked at the end of the week, and one decided to do a deep dive into AC:S, since he'd just finished it! Wound up being a nice full circle moment. (He really liked the game, although had a lot to say about the Ashikaga shogun's depiction.)

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Reposted by Dana Mirsalis

Jolyon Thomas @jolyonbt.bsky.social · 23/03/2025

Excellent essay (begins on p. 25)

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Yes. It means they're much more likely to read it. (I know this because I have a syllabus Easter Egg--it's like double the completion rate on semesters where I give them hard copies.)

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

Yes, this is the issue I ran into! There ARE two DVD releases that have subtitles--one of them there are like 5 copies catalogued in the world but the other seems possible to get with enough foresight (if you can do a class screening day--it unfortunately doesn't work for our class schedules).

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

Worth noting that Red Detachment of Women is on YouTube subtitled in its entirety!

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

*if you can get--we're doing good with typing today.

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

If fiction is okay, if you can The Legend of the Red Lantern on DVD, one of my colleagues really enjoyed teaching that. I couldn't get it, so I used The Red Detachment of Women (we watched the movie and then watched clips of the ballet in class) and my students really enjoyed analyzing that!

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

Are you looking for documentaries specifically or are primary source fiction films also up for grabs?

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

Forgot to post over here, but my copy of The New Nanzan Guide to Japanese Religions arrived! I have a short piece about gender and fieldwork included.

Photo of the front cover of The New Nanzan Guide to Japanese Religions.

Photo of the first page of my chapter, entitled "Gender."

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 07/12/2024

Huge, huge congratulations, Dr. Ugoretz!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Thanks for all your work scanning and archiving all of these! They're a huge boon whenever I'm searching for primary sources to assign. I've used this booklet in my modern Japanese history class twice now and my students have had a lot of fun analyzing it.

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Reposted by Dana Mirsalis

Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Fascinating online (and physical) exhibit on "how women and their families experienced pregnancy and childbirth in early modern Japan," with many amazing images like this one, a parodic rendering of the Buddhist Ten Realms Mandala placed within the womb. www.nichibun.ac.jp/online/ucsf_...

This print serves as a parodic rendering of the Kanjin jukkai zu (Ten Realms Mandala), a graphic text that extols the teachings of Buddhism, visible within the abdomen of a geisha-like woman, with the kanji character for "heart" in the center. The Ten Realms illustration functions here to reflect the new, modern world of Meiji-era Japan, in which the upper realms depict those who commit good deeds and the lower realms, evil.
The text in the upper left explains the importance of treating all living things, even insects, with the same respect as is given to humans, and without losing one's sense of compassion. The text and image combined present a perspective of re-evaluating even Buddhist teachings within the context of modern society.
Title: Fubu no on o shiru zu
Date: 1880
Collection: UCSF Japanese Woodblock Print Collection
Owning Institution: UC San Francisco, Library, Special Collections
Source: Calisphere
Date of access: December 5 2024 15:37
Permalink: https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/13030/hb2r29p0bv/

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Okay, that's enough from me for now--back to lesson planning and grading. どうぞ宜しくお願い致します。(12/12)

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Most of my time the past few years has been tied up in establishing new preps. I adore teaching, to be clear, and my students are stellar, but I'm excited to maybe not spend every spare moment writing lectures next (academic) year. (11/12)

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Other stuff: I'm the current secretary/treasurer for the Society for the Study of Japanese Religions: www.ssjrweb.org If you'll be at AAR, please consider coming to our sponsored panel on Saturday at 3 pm! (10/12)

ssjrweb.org

Society for the Study of Japanese Religions 日本宗教研究会

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

There's also always my dissertation (available on a ProQuest near you). I have a few other projects in the pipeline, so please stay tuned! (9/12)

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

If you want a little taste of this, check out my recent article on menstrual pollution: nccisjpnew.wixsite.com/nccisjp/%E8%... (7/12)

nccisjpnew.wixsite.com

Vol 46(1) | nccisjp

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

In summer 2023, I also gave an invited lecture for the National Female Priests Association! Basically, I get to see all the gaps between what shrines and their priests are SUPPOSED to be doing vs. what they are ACTUALLY doing in practice (and this is a big chunk of my research). (6/12)

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

I use mixed methods, aka I use archival work, ethnographic fieldwork, and interviews. I've been doing fieldwork in shrines for more than 13 years now, and have formally interviewed ~50 priests (in addition to speaking informally to dozens more). (5/12)

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

I've worked on topics like: how gender is constructed and negotiated in the shrine world (by institutions, priests, parishioners), how gender affects labor (and vice-versa), how ritual is used to reinforce gender norms, how gender intersects with other social categories, and more. (4/12)

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Currently about 17% of the priesthood is female, with the number of women in the priesthood increasing every year. The number of men peaked in 2000 and has been declining ever since. This demographic shift has presented a challenge to the dominant gender construction in the shrine world. (3/12)

Bar graph showing the gender composition of priests affiliated with Jinja Honcho. The number of women in the priesthood increases steadily over time, while the number of men peaks in 2000 and then declines.

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

I'm currently working on a monograph project on the gendering of the Shinto priesthood in postwar Japan. Basically, in 1946, women were allowed into the Shinto priesthood, supposedly to "open the way for the widows of priests who died in the war" and to "indicate gender equality." (2/12)

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Well, apparently there are now almost 300 (!!) of you following me, so I suppose I should do a proper introduction. Hi! I'm Dana Mirsalis. I'm a scholar of modern and contemporary Japanese religion and history, currently an assistant professor in the History Department at Pacific University. (1/12)

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 12/11/2024

If you're will to add people to the list, I fall into this category!

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 10/11/2024

I am very new (just joined today), but am in Japanese Studies!

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Dana Mirsalis @danamirsalis.bsky.social · 10/11/2024

Trying out this thing, I guess, although I am very shy on social media. I had an article about how female Shinto priests negotiate menstrual pollution come out recently, if you want to see the sort of things I work on! nccisjpnew.wixsite.com/nccisjp/%E8%...

nccisjpnew.wixsite.com

Vol 46(1) | nccisjp

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