Sept 3, 2024 I don’t know if this talk will touch on origami at all, but, from attending many meetings of this group, I can assure you that the discussion will be lively.
Karen Karen Reeds karenmre...@gmail.com Princeton Public Library Origami Group (still on hiatus) UPenn's Workshop in the History of Material Texts *Monday, September 9, at 5:15 PM *Eastern time. In person: Class of 1978 Pavilion, on the sixth floor of the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library, Univ of Pennsylvania campus, Philadelphia. By zoom: this Zoom link <https://upenn.zoom.us/j/96855656710?pwd=bYgx5RUKvs4VOqg1HWvPSE3Qjkez4J.1#success>. Please note that this year's Zoom link differs from the one used in past years. *Laura Moretti (University of Cambridge)*, “Engineered for Action: Movable Books in Early Nineteenth-Century Japan” Professor Moretti writes: A fascination for quick changes (*hayagawari*) was all the rage in early nineteenth-century Japan. The illusion of one shape that seamlessly morphs into another was at the heart of the engineering marvels of mechanical dolls (*karakuri*) and gained traction on the stage of the *kabuki *theatre. The world of commercial printing was not immune to this fashion. Decoupage prints enabled anyone armed with a pair of scissors and a healthy dose of imagination to enact metamorphosis in one’s own hands. Books further remediated the craze for quick changes. This paper explores the beginnings of what I view as books engineered for action and dissects two publications issued in 1810: *Hayagawari mune no karakuri* (The Mechanisms of the Human Heart in Quick-Change Format) and *Hayagawari kufū no adauchi* (A Revenge Story in Quick-Change Format). I interrogate the material qualities of these two titles to explore how they shape contents while enticing readers to a deeply tactile, interactive experience. How are these books designed to enable action? In what way does the movable medium affect the act of reading? Does our engagement with the contents—cognitive as well as emotional engagement—different because of the interaction with the movable parts of the book? To what extent is the reader asked to perform the plot by operating the book? In answering these questions, I hope to enter into dialogue with the extensive research done on Western “interactive books,” as Jacqueline Reid-Walsh calls them, and to bring to the fore differences alongside similarities. Laura Moretti is professor of Early Modern Japanese Literature and Culture at the University of Cambridge and a fellow at Emmanuel College. Her research focuses on early modern Japanese commercial prose. She has published extensively in English and Japanese, including *Graphic Narratives from Early Modern Japan: The World of* <https://brill.com/edcollbook/title/61019#:~:text=Graphic%20Narratives%20from%20Early%20Modern%20Japan%20is%20the%20first%20English,scholarship%2C%20uncovering%20fresh%20research%20avenues.> Kusazōshi <https://brill.com/edcollbook/title/61019#:~:text=Graphic%20Narratives%20from%20Early%20Modern%20Japan%20is%20the%20first%20English,scholarship%2C%20uncovering%20fresh%20research%20avenues.> (edited with Satō Yukiko; Brill, 2024); *Pleasure in Profit: Popular Prose in Seventeenth-Century Japan* <https://cup.columbia.edu/book/pleasure-in-profit/9780231197236> (Columbia University Press, 2020); *Recasting the Past: An Early Modern* Tales of Ise *for Children* <https://brill.com/display/title/32816> (Brill, 2016); and “The Japanese Early-Modern Publishing Market Unveiled: A Survey of Edo-Period Booksellers’ Catalogues,” <https://brill.com/view/journals/eaps/2/2/article-p199_2.xml> *East Asian Publishing and Society* 2 (2012): 199–308. Every year she runs the Mitsubishi Corporation Summer School in Early Modern Japanese Palaeography <https://wakancambridge.com/>, which celebrated the tenth anniversary in 2023 Sent from my iPhone
