The thesis will explore the idea of feeling Japanese spirituality of Shinto through a contemporary work of art, the animated film My Neighbour Totoro (1988). The idea of a felt spirituality revolves around Shinto’s notion of kami, divine entities whose existence becomes manifest through one’s feeling and perception to awe-inspiring things of the natural world and the aesthetic notion of aware, an immediate felt emotional response that coincides as the response/reaction when coming into contact with awe-inspiring things. This thesis conceives aware to be the meeting point in which the human and kami world converge, a Shinto concept known as shinjin-g
itsu, or the meeting of the human spirit with kami. This thesis will uncover themes of Shinto spirituality through a close reading of the functionality of specific components of the film: music, setting, characters, character interactions, and symbolism. Themes such as nature, community, symbolism and the role of aesthetics within the film will be discussed to showcase the idea of a spiritual encounter. It is a spiritual encounter/meeting that is facilitated through the aesthetics and components of the film which elicits a response of aware from the viewer. / Graduate / 0322 / 0332 / 0900 / scarbul@gmail.com
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/5061 |
| Date | 03 December 2013 |
| Creators | Carbullido, Sherri |
| Contributors | Noro, Hiroko, Iles, Timothy |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | Available to the World Wide Web |
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