Essay Assignment
Write an Essay on Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book.
"Cultural anthropologists specialize in the study of culture and peoples' beliefs, practices, and the cognitive and social organization of human groups. Cultural anthropologists study how people who share a common cultural system organize and shape the physical and social world around them, and are in turn shaped by those ideas, behaviors, and physical environments."
Write a brief cultural anthropology of Heian Japan based on Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book that addresses the following questions: How did the Heian aristocracy shape their world and how were they shaped by it? In other words, what kind of world did they live in?
With these questions in mind, identify and discuss three or more important themes/topics from Pillow Book that, in your view, are critical to understanding the culture of aristocrats in the Heian period. Some examples of major themes/topics might be: religious ceremony, court etiquette, fashion, nature and the seasons, romantic relationships, emotions, aesthetics, shrines and temples, place of women, art of writing, knowledge of Chinese literature, court architecture, living conditions. You can choose from among these, or come up with themes/topics of your own. But be certain to follow your themes/topics through the book, and make sure to cite page numbers from the book for all the examples you use.
The essays should be 5 double-spaced pages in length.