This Waseda University Grant for SpecialResearch Projects (for Newly-Hired Faculty) contributed financial support towardmy ongoing research on fourteenth-century Japanese didactic paintings. Thisacademic year, the research resulted in an article, tentatively entitled “The Materialityof a Promise: Interworldly Contracts in Medieval Buddhist Promotional CampaignImagery,” forthcoming in the next special issue of the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies (JJRS).I also co-edited the special issue (JJRS 45:2), tentatively entitled ModestMaterialities: TheSocial Lives and Afterlives of Sacred Things in Japan, with Benedetta Lomi (BristolUniversity). Other authors include Fabio Gygi (SOASUniversity of London), Benedetta Lomi, Ouchi Fumi (MiyagiGakuin Women’s University), David Quinter (University of Alberta), and Steven Trenson (Waseda University).This grant, which also funded archival research that is not yet reflected in a publication, supported groundwork for a future monograph onfourteenth-century Japanese paintings that were createdfor promotional and fund-raising purposes.