Carmen Blacker

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Carmen Blacker
School of Oriental and African Studies
Somerville College, Oxford
Spouse
​
(m. 2002)​

Carmen Blacker OBE FBA (13 July 1924 – 13 July 2009) was a British Japonologist. She was a lecturer in Japanese at the University of Cambridge.

Life

Blacker was born in

sinologist Arthur Waley at Bletchley Park, and he inspired her to study Chinese in her spare time.[2] In 1944 she arranged to receive lessons in Japanese from Major General Francis S. G. Piggott.[3]

After graduating from SOAS in 1947 she began her studies at

ascetic life in Japan.[5]

Blacker was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1989.[2] She was awarded the Minakata Kumagusu Prize in 1998.[6]

Blacker was a member of the Folklore Society, and served as its President from 1982 to 1984.[7] As President she delivered two addresses: “The Exiled Warrior: The Legend and its Ramifications in Japan”[8] and “Minakata Kumagusu: A Neglected Japanese Genius”.[9]

She married her longtime partner, the Chinese scholar Michael Loewe, in 2002. She had met Loewe at Bletchley Park.[3]

Blacker died in a nursing home in Cambridge on 13 July 2009, her 85th birthday.[6]

Works

  • The Japanese Enlightenment: A Study of the Writings of Fukuzawa Yukichi, 1964
  • The Catalpa Bow: A Study of Shamanistic Practices in Japan, three editions 1975, 1986, 1999
  • Ancient Cosmologies, 1975
  • Divination and Oracles, 1981
  • Collected writings of Carmen Blacker, 2000.
  • Women and tradition: a neglected group of folklorists, 2000 (with
    H. R. Ellis Davidson
    )
  • The Straw Sandal, translation of a novel by Santō Kyōden, 2008

Collection of essays about Blacker's life and work

Carmen Blacker, Scholar of Japanese Religion, Myth and Folklore: Writings and Reflections, edited by Hugh Cortazzi, Folkestone, Kent: Renaissance Books, 2017 (since made an imprint of Amsterdam University Press).

References

  1. Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures. Archived
    from the original on 5 July 2022.
  2. ^ a b Carmen Blacker FBA Archived December 8, 2015, at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ a b P. F. Kornicki, ‘Blacker, Carmen Elizabeth Deidre (1924–2009)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Jan 2013; online edition, May 2013 accessed 28 Nov 2015
  4. ^ Hugh Cortazzi (2010). Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits. p. 219.
  5. ^ Religion in Japan: Arrows to Heaven and Earth P. F. Kornicki, I. J. McMullen, 1996, xviii - xix
  6. ^ a b Obituary Carmen Blacker, Japan Times, retrieved 27 November 2015
  7. S2CID 162185809
    .
  8. ISSN 0015-587X
    .
  9. ISSN 0015-587X
    .
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Carmen_Blacker&oldid=1208864571"