Includes bibliographical references and index.

Front Matter -- Copyright Page -- Prologue -- List of Contributors -- Introduction -- Rituals Related to the Household and Childbirth -- Women and “Moving House” Rituals in Mid-Heian Japan -- Devising the Esoteric Rituals for Women: Fertility and the Demon Mother in the Gushi nintai sanshō himitsu hōshū by Anna Andreeva -- Taira no Tokushi’s Birth of Emperor Antoku by Naoko Gunji -- Women and Buddhist Rituals and Icons -- A Female Deity as the Focus of a Buddhist Ritual: Kichijō Keka at Hōryūji by Chari Pradel -- The Relic and the Jewel: An Eleventh-Century Miniature Bronze Pagoda to Hold the Bones of a Young Queen by Hank Glassman -- Connecting Kannon to Women Through Print by Sherry Fowler -- Buddhist Women and Death Memorials -- Commemorating Life and Death: The Memorial Culture Surrounding the Rinzai Zen Nun Mugai Nyodai by Patricia Fister -- Of Surplices and Certificates: Tracing Mugai Nyodai’s Kesa by Monica Bethe -- Female Patronage, Portraits, and Rituals -- Retired Empress and Buddhist Patron: Higashisanjō-in Donates a Set of Icon Curtains in the Illustrated Legends of Ishiyamadera Handscroll by Elizabeth Morrissey -- Life After Death: The Intersection of Patron and Subject in the Portrait of Jōkō-in by Elizabeth Self -- Back Matter -- Index.

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Women, Rites, and Ritual Objects in Premodern Japan , edited by Karen M. Gerhart, is a multidisciplinary examination of rituals featuring women, in which significant attention is paid to objects produced for and utilized in these rites as a lens through which larger cultural concerns, such as gender politics, the female body, and the materiality of the ritual objects, are explored. The ten chapters encounter women, rites, and ritual objects in many new and interactive ways and constitute a pioneering attempt to combine ritual and gendered analysis with the study of objects. Contributors include: Anna Andreeva, Monica Bethe, Patricia Fister, Sherry Fowler, Karen M. Gerhart, Hank Glassman, Naoko Gunji, Elizabeth Morrissey, Chari Pradel, Barbara Ruch, Elizabeth Self.