The arguments presented in these papers by Professors Saitō and Kōnoshi may be are very stimulating, and much of the language they use is new—both in their Japanese work and in these translated versions. For example, Professor Saito’s delineation of the contours of the “Sinographic sphere” as well as his discussion of “multivalent graphs” are suggestive and potentially very helpful in providing us with new terms for ongoing discussions; and I, for one, find Prof. Konoshi’s configuration of a “store of shared knowledge” embodied in texts that we have perhaps been too ready to overlook to be very inviting. But of course these interventions raise many questions.

Now I recognize that the presentations shared here today are condensed versions of much longer and more fully developed papers and articles that they have presented or published elsewhere. It may be because of the condensed form of these presentations that some of the questions I’ll raise now aren’t addressed in the papers themselves.

For example, Prof. Saito says, on page 11, “Having acquired the greatest political might in Asia, Chinese characters began to expand their am it into areas at the periphery of the continent,” (and here, unless I’m mistaken or the translator is, it is “Chinese characters” that “acquired this great political might” (when, in terms of dates, I’m not quite sure: the paper in this version is very short on dates or chronological specificity of any kind); or when, in a different section of the paper, on p. 18, Prof. Saito speculates about the role that the absence in early 20th century Japan of “the people who would be the bearers of words” may have given rise to “a sense of lack” that” became transformed into a demand for the mobilization of the national populace and calls for the systematic organization of East Asia,” –at both these moments, and some others, I have to ask whether the scope of consideration at both these points in the argument—and perhaps others—is not excessively logocentric. Can we really talk about writing and its power in such isolation from other forces in a developing and changing civilization?

Likewise, on page 2 of Prof. Konoshi’s paper, where we read, “Writing has always been a matter of politics…the establishment of a written communication system was equivalent to the establishment of a state.” I worry about the word “equivalent” here and its role in this argument. In each of these moments in both these arguments, must we not consider the role of language and writing (as a valuable and powerful technology) as one among a number of politically enabling factors and forces shaping developments and events—forces and factors such as the amassing and control of labor, natural resources, transport and the like? Didn’t the spread and transfer of “power” depend upon these as well, even is as much as these developments were enabled by writing and its control? I am not a specialist in the area of theories of the rise of civilizations and the role of writing in these phenomena, but I doubt that we can convincingly attribute the whole outcome of the project of ancient Chinese imperialism to the power of “Chinese characters.” And similarly, when we talk about Japan’s modern Imperial history, I think we should be very cautious about oversimplifications that would lay the motivation for “mobilization” to a concern about the future of “the word.” Among other things, I’d like to ask Prof. Saito to clarify the intent of his line of argument about Japan’s mid-20th century history; I’m not sure just how much of history you are trying to explain by this means, and to what end, and to what effect. Just who and what are we talking about when we say something like this, on p. 15 about the modern transfiguration of the Sinographic sphere—that Western intervention in East Asia “became an opportunity to exploit and fully realize the power that lay stored with the Sinographic sphere, in the pursuit of new value.” I need a clarification here: opportunity for whom, to exploit whom?

In this connection, I also have to ask if it is necessary to impose the task of explaining modernity, or modern events or phenomena, upon such a well informed and provocatively thought-out study of antiquity such as that which Prof. Saito has given us here. Why conclude the paper this way—doesn’t antiquity merit study in its own right? There is in fact much more that I would like to have you teach us about the past. For example:

On p. 6, you talk about the shi 士“wresting characters away from the realm of shamans” and thus “obtaining the ability to participate in governance.” Do we know that this process needs to be described in terms of a struggle or violent appropriation, as suggested by the word “wresting” in this account? If this was a violent contest, how was it conducted? Or should we take this way of describing the process of technology transfer more figuratively than literally?

Also, on p. 8, there’s a point in your paper where we leap forward abruptly to Tokugawa Japan. In so doing, your account of the reasons for that period’s “fondness” for the Analects and other Confucian texts and teachings elides the entire history of kangaku from the Asuka period forward. What about those Kamakura-period interactions with and textual transmissions from the continent that scholars such as Horikawa Takashi and others have so well documented? Did you bracket these simply for lack of space and time? Later, on p. 11, you note that “In the present educational climate in Japan, all of these forms [Confucian writings, Buddhist scripture, texts recorded from the vernacular, etc.] are treated as being the same thing, subsumed under the category ‘kanbun.’ [and you say] “It is truly regrettable that instruction typically falls into the trap of being simply a matter of following the reading marks.” I agree, but perhaps what is even more important to mention here is the multiplicity of the technologies of marking that arose and co-existed and are preserved in manuscripts and commentaries from the Heian period onward. I am freshly reminded of this aspect of the history of Japanese literacy because of my own most recent exposure to the complexities of Heian- and Kamakura-period reading practices as analyzed at the recent Kangaku workshop held in Venice.

Prof. Konoshi challenges us to “create a new approach to study and understand literate culture in early East Asia” in place of the “conventional paradigm of literary studies, based on notions of ethnicity and nationality, such as ‘Japanese literature, Chinese literature, Korean literature.” I’m sure there are many here ready to sign on to this project, though it’s not yet entirely clear to me just how the work is going to be done.

I think you are demonstrating one way that this might be carried out in your discussion of the “konokimi” episode from Makura no søshi. You show us how a store of “commonly share knowledge” (which in this case must be a store of knowledge commonly shared by men and at least some women) is there to be documented, if we take thorough stock of the range of texts such as dictionaries and encyclopedias that were in circulation around the year 1000, and that this “variety of books made up literate culture as a whole”—a detailed knowledge of which Sei Shønagon shows off to spectacular effect in this anecdote. I look forward to knowing much more about the detailed contours and content of this store of knowledge, and also how it was accessed, and by whom. You encourage us to “approach this world of literate activities” by “experiencing for ourselves what the early Japanese actually read and learned.” For this purpose I think we will want to know how to discern, and with what evidence and from what sources, just what the readers of various early periods of Japanese cultural history read, in what modes and manners and with what technologies they read those texts.

To be sure, we are reminded of, or learn anew, so many important facts in Prof. Konoshi’s paper, where these facts are cast in a light that gives them new significance—and of course this makes we want to know more. For example, on p. 4 you tell us about the preservation of the 6th century version of Yupian　玉篇 in Japan, which was otherwise lost in China. Can you tell us if we know anything about who read and used this text in Japan, or how they used it?

Also, you take us into an interesting treatment of the Yupian’s discussion of the difference between various terms for “singing” 謡／歌（yao/ge). Do you know of any evidence that would show that this distinction between accompanied and unaccompanied singing served as a guide for usage of these terms in later periods in Japan?

At the end of your paper you invite our participation in an educational program “that aims to relive the learning of East Asian classics and obtain first hand experience of reading early literature. This is an exciting invitation, but I think we have to recognize some limitations on this enterprise. The past, which earlier I said should invite our study for its own sake is, after all, a “foreign country.” We access it through cultural filters of many kinds, and we visit it with what are sometimes distorting, even romantic predispositions, or with course-altering political motivations, or to escape or evade the present, or to re-construct it. No matter how disciplined our scholarship may be, we probably can’t completely overcome these distorting handicaps. Perhaps the best we can to is to recognize and be clear and honest about our motivations and our objectives. I would like to know more about yours. What exactly are the methods and a prior scholarly assumptions that you would displace? What more can you tell us about the program you envision? Who are the participants and audiences? What outcomes should we anticipate?