Carmen Blacker


Carmen Blacker FBA, OST, OBE 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. 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 code breakers at 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. In 1944, she arranged lessons in Japanese for herself from Major General Pigott. After graduating in 1947 she began her studies at Somerville College, Oxford. 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 1960's based on extensive field work, which she participated in such as Kaihōgyō and ascetic life in Japan.
Blacker became a Fellow of the British Academy. She was awarded the Minakata Kumagusu Prize in 1998.
She married her longtime partner, the Chinese scholar Michael Arthur Nathan Loewe, in 2002. She had met Loewe at Bletchley Park. Blacker died in a Cambridge nursing home in 2009.

Works

Kent: Renaissance Books, 2017.