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Today, on May 22nd, Alari Allik will defend his doctoral thesis at the Tallinn University Estonian Institute of Humanities. His study focuses on the works of the medieval Japanese writer Kamo no Chōmei, his practices of self-narration, and offers an alternative to the historical person centred biography. This is the first doctoral thesis on Japanese studies in Estonia.

The thesis analyses Kamo no Chōmei’s (1155-1216, also known as Ren’in in his old age) “Record of the Ten-Foot-Square-Hut” (��ō��ō�쾱, 1212)  and “A Collection of Tales on the Awakening of the Faith” (��Dz����󾱲Բ���ū, 1214). The former is written as an autobiographical account, where the author reviews his life at an old age. The latter is a collection of Buddhist tales (setsuwa), many of which are written as examples or warnings to those, who have planned for a good life or death.

Many seemingly seamless biographies of Japanese authors are often constructed using their writings from a longer period. Allik says these texts should be seen as literature, where depicting the self as someone else or different carries a major role: “If we abandon the traditional biographical model, where every written work is shown as self-expression of a historical figure, we lose the urge to dismiss the parts of texts, which do not fit into the biographical narrative.”

Such an approach turns the focus on the rupture between the two selves of the writer, which is emphasised by the dual name form Chōmei/Ren’in, the difference between the images of a court poet and a mountain hermit, but at the same time signifies many other components in a fragmentised self-image, which come along in the texts.

Therefore the self-narration can be interpreted more widely than thus far. Writing about oneself and others can be seen as a singular activity, which, when using Foucault’s terminology, can be described as care for the self. The self is transformed via writing – it becomes another, but at the same time reflects one’s habits or traits, which hinder or promote change. When writing about others, the author thinks about what my own story, carried on by the following generations, would be. This means the self is found in these stories – the main model for finding our way in the life does not come from people made of flesh and bone, but the author images mediated by the text.

Alari Allik’s doctoral thesis “Multiple Selves of Chōmei / Ren’in / Minade paljusus Chōmei / Ren’ini teostes“ was supervised by senior researcher Rein Raud from Tallinn University and professor Rajyashree Pandey from London University. His opponents are fellow professor Eneken Laanes from Tallinn University and professor Saeko Kimura from Tsuda College (japan).

The thesis can be read at the TU Academic E-library .

Public defence of the thesis will take place today, on May 22^nd at 12:00 at the Tallinn University auditorium M-225 (Uus-Sadama 5)