Patricia Ehrkamp's Article Summary

In Japanese culture shrines are places to worship the many gods that they believe in. This tradition involves physically visiting the shrine and bowing to its inhabitants while praying in an act of respect to their creators and maintainers of earth. In 1993, David Boggett photographed Professor Nakanishi Akira praying at Kamigamo Shrine on Koyama Mountain. Professor Nakanishi is pictured in the corner of the photograph with hands pressed forward in a vector towards the object of worship which is shrouded beneath the growth of the trees and brush above it. The photograph is taken from an angle in which nature is the main object of interest as it combats the Professor's pilgrimage to pray by overtaking the shrine and professing that the conformity within the act of praying is useless against the wild's unattached entity. However, Professor Nakanishi is posed with a relaxed and comfortable stance as if nature does not daunt his spirit of patriarchal values. From this occurrence the photo …show more content…
Ehrkamp describes that women are expected to conform to the new Western belief system as their own culture is barbaric and archaic in comparison, but that if one does convert into the Western belief the women is seen as a revolutionist aiding in the conversion of more immigrant women to Western ideals(Ehrkamp 20). However, Ehrkamp reveals that the scholar Abu-Lughod proposed that to resist is to express power(Ehrkamp 21). From this the context of the Professor encroaching into a sacred domain can be seen as him asserting power. As he resists the Shinto priest's conventional ways he gives himself a higher power over his surroundings and over his cultural restrictions. He has created an individual principle that he follows without the limitations of his