Despite living under different social circumstances, both outcasts and commoners in medieval Japan actively fought for their own survival. Scholars have often imagined these groups to be simply the victims of exploitation, unable to assert any control over their respective situations. However, as illuminated by visual and written materials such as the Ippen Shonin Eden and the laws of the Kamakura bakufu, outcasts and slaves clearly exerted a measure of control over their own lives. Outcasts were not simply subjugated but played essential soteriological and secular roles for medieval communities through their relationship with religious institutions. Faced with significant challenges, commoners created a number of strategies to combat the problems faced in everyday life including the sale of one's self, relatives, or retainers into servitude. Although commoners had few options, they actively entered into these agreements to assuage their suffering or the suffering of their family members.

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2005. Graduate Programme in Social Anthropology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 179-188). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url%5Fver=Z39.88-2004&res%5Fdat=xri:pqdiss &rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:MR11931

Whisper was a reject, living in a world so polluted and damaged that many humans and animals alike were born with defects. She'd grown up in an outcast camp far from any village, and those who lived in the camp were like her: disfigured. But on her sixteenth birthday, Whisper's father came to take her back to the village where she was to fill her mother's vacated spot and perform duties for the family. Her job was to cook, clean, wash the clothes, and maintain the family property. At night she was chained to the doghouse. Her uncle decided that Whisper could make far more money for the family by other means. He escorted her to the city where he brought her to the Purgatory Palace which was full of people like her, people with disfigurements who had been abandoned by their families and lived in the city for one reason only -to beg for money. Whisper refused to beg, and instead used the violin she'd received from her mother, and played songs for the money she earned. This became tolerable for a time. But Whisper missed her forest home with an ache as cold as the city and she missed the other rejects from the camp in the woods. When she was accused of attacking a store attendant, she found herself in jail. She was rescued by Solomon, a man who had heard her songs on the street corners and said that she played as only a genius could. He offered her a place at The Conservatory of Music, where she would study the violin with him. Whisper accepted this offer but even though she was warm, safe, and played music every day, she did not fit in at The University and knew that she never would. This is a young adult novel about Whisper, trying to find a place in a world that doesn't accept her. It is a story of rejection, pollution and social status. Whisper discovers that through perseverance, friends and determination, anyone can find a way to fit.

No description available.

No description available.

Cette étude traite des représentations littéraires du « démon de la fornication » et des notions avoisinantes du tabou et de la transgression dans la société tardo-antique de l’Orient chrétien à travers la lecture des Vies de saints. Elle focalise sur les « Vies de saintes prostituées » et celles « de saintes adultères », qui concrétisent les perceptions de l’homme tardo-antique autour de la question de la transgression des tabous sexuels. Mais à côté de la représentation littéraire de la transgression réelle (d’ordre principalement sexuelle) de normes sociales, nous serons étonnés de trouver d’autres formes de transgression, tantôt imaginaire tantôt réelle. Pour cette raison nous avons examiné d’autres cas « marginaux » de saints, dont les Vies nous fournissent des indices précieux sur toute la gamme de normes sociales et de prescriptions taboues de la société tardo-antique : la fuite du mariage, le refus du travail, l’homosexualité, la contestation du pouvoir (paternel et politique), la mendicité, le vagabondage, la folie et le rire n’étant que les plus importants. Pourtant, la seule énumération de ces sujets pose un autre problème éminemment plus important que la représentation littéraire, celui de la place des marginaux dans cette société. Quelle était la place, alors, de tous ceux qui étaient considérés comme des « rejetés » sociaux dans la société de l’Antiquité tardive, quelle était la place des prostituées, des adultères, des homosexuels, des fous, des clochards, des chômeurs, des vagabonds et quelles étaient les attitudes vis-à-vis d’eux et quelles répercussions sociales et psychologiques affrontaient-ils ? En essayant de répondre, nous avons essayé de mettre en avant l’hypothèse de l’existence d’une catégorie particulière de Vies de saints qui traiterait toutes ces questions taboues : les « Vies de saints populaires » dont les principales caractéristiques nous avons essayé d’établir et d’interpréter dans une synthèse historique qui conclue cette étude. / This study treats the literary representations of the “demon of fornication” and the adjacent notions of taboo and transgression in the late-antique society of Christian East through a close reading of the Lives of Saints. It focuses on the “Lives of Holy Harlots” and those of “Holy Adulteresses”, which materialize the late-antique man’s perceptions about the question of the transgression of the sexual taboos. But just along with the literary representations of social norms’ real transgression, mostly sexual, we can also find other forms of transgression, either real or imaginary. For this reason we have examined other cases of “border-line” saints, whose Lives provide us with precious indications about the whole range of social norms and the taboo limitations of the late-antique society: the denial of marriage and work, the homosexuality, the contesting of the paternal and political power, the begging, the wandering, the madness and the laughter, only being the most important. However, the simple enumeration of such subjects evokes the question of the position of the outcasts in this society. Which was the place of all those who were considered as social “rejections” in the late-antique society, which was the place of prostitutes, of adulteresses, of homosexuals, of foolish people, of the wandering or begging workless people, and which were the attitudes towards them or the social and psychological repercussions that they were obliged to confront? Upon trying to answer to these questions, we’ve stumbled upon the existence of a distinct category of Lives of Saints which treats all those taboo subjects: the “Lives of popular Saints” (or the “Popular Lives of Saints”), whose main characteristics we have tried to establish and to interpret in an historical synthesis that concludes this study.