Online Cultural Course PiVOTAL
Characters are said to consist of three elements: shape, sound, and meaning, i.e., the shape of the character, the sound it makes, and the meaning it indicates.
Within a single character (ideogram), these three elements are not evenly distributed, and they are constantly fluctuating in a state of tension. Changes in each have a strong impact on the others.
How do they affect words and poetry? How is the style of writing or printing related to words? By tracing the history of Chinese characters, I hope to consider the poetry and power of characters.
Hiroyuki Koga
Talking about Letters II
Modern characters
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Content development
*Course content may be subject to change in the future.
*You can take the courses consecutively or just take the course on the topic that interests you.
*Resumes of completed courses are available for download.
2024
01_202408 Character location
240801 The Potential of Character Strings: The Power of Fonts, Character Styles, and Character Shapes
240802 Writing materials and stationery
002_202410 Early modern items 241001 Early modern written media: stone monuments, hikakuda (paper charms), fudekozuka (burial mounds), and other items of correspondence 241002 Calligraphy styles: Oie-ryu, Senkage-ryu, and letter calligraphy
003_202412 From the Early Modern Period to the Modern Period 241201 The Shift to Regular Script in Society─Stone Monuments→"Former Domain Sentiments" "Meiji Period Announcement Typeface Theory"
241202 From Japanese Style to Chinese Style: Media History
2025
004_202502 What did Kaisho and Ming style bring? 250201 Official Gazette, Newspaper, Japanese Type, Blackboard (Listing)
250202 Matrix of the Meiji era character space → "Genkai"
005_202504 Modernity and Poetry 250401 New Style Poetry and Colloquial Tanka, Theory of Extinction, Unification of Spoken and Written Language, Theory of Line Breaks 250402 "Consistency" and "Transparency"
006_202506 Machines, Letters, and Cities 250601 Punctuation, Onomatopoeia, and Modernist Literature 250602 New Japanese Characters, Design Characters, and Cinematic Characters
007_202508 Higuchi Ichiyo Theory 250801 Business Cards and Photographs 250802 Diary and Manuscript Paper - "Square Characters"
250803 Summary: Modern Writing Experiences: Copy and Original
Lecturer: Hiroyuki Koga
Hiroyuki Koga
Born in Fukuoka Prefecture in 1961. Graduated from the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Letters, Hosei University. Worked for a calligraphy publishing company (1985-1997), editing and producing magazines and books on calligraphy and art. After that, he became a freelancer. He is a visiting researcher at the Daito Bunka University Calligraphy Research Institute. His major project and editing work includes the Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Calligraphy (Kashiwa Shobo, 2010), and his publications include Reading Ancient Documents from Zero Knowledge (Gentosha, 2020), The Message of Letters and Calligraphy: A Cultural History from Graffiti to Kanji (Kosakusha, 2017), and The Secrets of Calligraphy (Asahi Press, 2017).
Personal website
https://hiroyukikoga.wixsite.com/gorgeanalogue
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Lecturer: Mizue Mori
Mizue Mori