Carmen Blacker

Carmen Blacker FBA, OST, OBE (13 July 1924 – 13 July 2009) was a British Japonologist. She was a lecturer in Japanese at Cambridge University.

Life[]

Blacker was born in Kensington in 1924. Her parents were Carlos Paton Blacker and Helen Maud (born Pilkington). She was interested in Japanese, by the age of 12 she had a Japanese Grammar. In 1942 she attended the School of Oriental and African Studies where she was identified for top secret work. Blacker was recruited by the codebreakers at the Government Code and Cypher School, Bletchley Park but she left because she saw no benefit in the work. She was paid two pounds a week because she was a young woman. She met the difficult Orientalist and sinologist Arthur Waley at Bletchley and he inspired her to learn Chinese in her spare time.^[1] In 1944, she arranged lessons in Japanese for herself from Major-General Francis S. G. Piggott.^[2]

After graduating in 1947 she began her studies at Somerville College, Oxford.^[3] In 1952 she had begun travelling to Japan. In 1955 she was appointed Assistant Lecturer and from 1958 onwards as University Lecturer of Japanese Studies at Cambridge University. During her time at Cambridge she was known for visiting Japan in the summer breaks to study Buddhism, staying with Osaragi Jiro in Kamakura where she practised Zazen and was interested by Shugendō which influenced her switch to research Japanese studies. Her first book published in 1975 was a result of these visits in the 1960s based on extensive field work, which she participated in such as Kaihōgyō and ascetic life in Japan.^[4]

Blacker was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1989.^[1] She was awarded the in 1998.^[5]

Blacker was also a member of the Folklore Society, serving as its President between 1982 and 1984.^[6] As President, she delivered two addresses: “The Exiled Warrior: The Legend and its Ramifications in Japan”^[7] and “Minakata Kumagusu: A Neglected Japanese Genius”.^[8]

She married her longtime partner, the Chinese scholar Michael Arthur Nathan Loewe, in 2002. She had met Loewe at Bletchley Park.^[2] Blacker died in a Cambridge nursing home in 2009.^[5]

Works[]

• The Japanese Enlightenment: a Study of the Writings of Fukuzawa Yukichi, 1964
• The Catalpa Bow: a Study of Shamanistic Practices in Japan, 1975; 1986; 1999
• Ancient Cosmologies, 1975
• Divination and Oracles, 1981
• The Straw Sandal, a 2008 translation of a novel by Santō Kyōden

Biography[]

Carmen Blacker: Scholar of Japanese Religion, Myth and Folklore (Hugh Cortazzi, ed., with James McMullen and Mary-Grace Browning) Kent: Renaissance Books, 2017.

(This book, which has an introduction by Michael Loewe titled 'Carmen Blacker - Friend, Scholar and Wife', was launched on 5 December 2016 at the Society of Antiquaries of London, where Blacker was a Fellow. The book also has diary excerpts and some key unpublished work.)

References[]