Diane Freedman Memorial Speaker

Dr. Frank Chance
Gates to Shikoku: Personal Experience and Religious Traditions of the Eighty-Eight Temple Pilgrimage.

A group of eighty-eight sites related to the life of the eminent Buddhist priest Kukai (774-835 posthumously Kobo Daishi) came to prominence in late medieval Shikoku, the smallest of Japan’s four main islands. Today these temples form a circuit traveled by thousands of henro pilgrims annually.

Dr. Frank Chance walked the 1200-kilometer route in February and March of 2016 and participated in many rituals along the path; this paper reports on his experience and reflects on the survival and adaptation of this tradition in contemporary times.

The talk is illustrated with images and artifacts from his sojourn. 

Frank Chase

Dr. Chance is a scholar of early modern Japanese art. He received his PhD in the History of Art at the University of Washington. Dr. Chance has curated annual film series events as well as exhibitions of Japanese prints at the University of Pennsylvania Museum and Haverford College. Dr. Chance has served as Director of Shofuso, Japan House and Garden and served for 13 years as the Associate Director for Academics at the Center for East Asian Studies.