Writing through Death: Memorial Palimpsests of Medieval Japan

This paper explores intersections of the epistolary form, temporality of the scroll, performativity, and affect through a close object analysis of Buddhist memorial palimpsests of medieval Japan. These textually layered compositions were produced at cataclysmic moments of loss: upon the death of a loved one, family members gathered the dead’s letters and other remnants of handwriting and transformed them through material reconstructions, via the copying of sacred scripture as a new textual layer, into embodied palimpsests. This paper advocates for the inclusion of Buddhist examples into the wider discussion of palimpsests as an avenue for understanding the visuality and intentionality of this peculiar form. Like most medieval material culture, much of their histories have been erased or forgotten. But through an object biographical approach that traces the moments of transformation marking the manuscripts' materiality, we can come closer to understanding the afterlives of these letters through the prism of medieval reuse and recycling. Doing so also recovers the manuscripts as ritual objects and performances of mourning and prayers for salvation. The paper closes with some considerations about art history’s boundaries and foundations. These palimpsests are entirely without images and instead are layered textual compositions, and yet they allow us to critique some of the standard assumptions of art historical inquiry like foreground/background; dominant/periphery; and recto/verso.