Skip to main content

Research

Interests

  • Classical and Early-Modern Japanese Literature
  • Japanese Women’s Writing
  • A-Bomb Literature and Film in Japan

Journal Articles

  • “Fujiwara Yorinaga no kanbun nikki Taiki; jendā to janru wo megutte.” Jōsai Kokusai Daigaku Nihon kenkyū sentā kiyō 6 (2011), pp. 1-8.
  •  “The Polymorphous Canon: Identity and Invention.” Review article: Canon and Identity—Japanese Modernization Reconsidered: Trans-Cultural Perspectives, ed. Irmela Hijiya Kirschnereit (Berlin: Deutsches Institut für Japanstudien, 2000) and Inventing the Classics: Modernity, National Identity, and Japanese Literature, eds. Haruo Shirane and Tomi Suzuki (Stanford: Stanford UP, 2000). Monumenta Nipponica, 57:3 (Autumn, 2002) pp. 359-372.
  • “Five Portraits of Male Friendship in the Ise monogatari.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 60:2 (2000) pp. 445-488.
  • “Theorizing Sex/Gender in Early Modern Japan: Kitamura Kigin’s Maidenflowers and Wild Azaleas.” Japanese Studies 18:3 (1998) pp. 247-263.
  • “Formulating a Theory of Women’s Writing in 17th-Century Japan: Kitamura Kigin’s Ominaeshi monogatari (Tales of a Maidenflower).” Early Modern Japan: An Interdisciplinary Journal 5:2 (1995) pp. 14-18.
  • “Josei no nanshoku ron [A Female Discourse on Male Love].” Bungaku 6:1 (1995) pp. 67-71.
  • “The Invention of a Literary Tradition of Male Love: Kitamura Kigin’s Iwatsutsuji.” Monumenta Nipponica 48:1 (1993) pp. 1-31.

Chapters in Books

  • “Ihara Saikaku and Ejima Kiseki: the literature of urban townspeople.” In Haruo Shirane, Tomi Suzuki, and David Lurie, eds. Cambridge History of Japanese Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2016. 415-423.
  • “Kanbun nikki no naimensei o yomu—Fujiwara Yorinaga Taiki o chūshin ni.” In Obara Jin, ed. Gyokuyō ronshū. Tokyo: Bensei Shuppan, 2013.
  •  “Auschwitz and Hiroshima: Economies of Victimization, Communities of Empathy.” In Judit Árokay, Verena Blechinger-Talcott, and Hilaria Gössmann, eds. Essays in Honor of Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit, Munich: Iudicium, 2008. pp. 409-426.
  • “Figures of Worship: Responses to Onnagata on the Kabuki Stage in Seventeenth-Century Japanese Vernacular Prose.” In Minoru Fujita and Michael Shapiro, eds. Transvestism and the Onnagata Traditions in Shakespeare and Kabuki. Kent: Global Oriental, 2006. pp. 59-70.
  • “Dangerous Pleasure: The Discourse of Drink in Early-Modern Japan.” In Tadao Umesao, Shūji Yoshida, and Paul Schalow, eds. Alcoholic Beverages in Japanese Civilization. Osaka: Senri Ethnological Studies No. 64, National Museum of Ethnology, 2003. pp. 77-88.
  • “Kiken na tanoshimi: kinsei Nihon no shūron.” In Umesao Tadao and Yoshida Shūji, eds. Sake to Nihon bunmei. Kōbundō, 2000. pp. 169-192.
  • “Introduction.” In Stephen D. Miller, ed. Partings at Dawn: An Anthology of Japanese Gay Literature. San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press, 1996. pp. 10-19.
  • “Seiyō ni okeru Saikaku kenkyū to Nanshoku ōkagami no ichizuke.” In Saikaku shintenbō. Tokyo: Benseisha, 1993. pp. 286-306.
  • “Spiritual Dimensions of Male Beauty in Japanese Buddhism.” In Michael L. Stemmeler & José Ignacio Cabezón, eds. Religion, Homosexuality, and Literature. Las Colinas, Texas: Monument Press, 1992. pp. 75-94. Reprinted in Winston Leyland, ed. Queer Dharma: Voices of Gay Buddhists. San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press, 1998. pp. 107-124.
  • “Kūkai and the Tradition of Male Love in Japanese Buddhism.” In José Ignacio Cabezón, ed. Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender. New York: SUNY Press, 1992. pp. 215-30. Reprinted as “The Legend of Kūkai” in Winston Leyland, ed. Queer Dharma: Voices of Gay Buddhists. San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press, 1998. pp. 90-106.
  • “Literature and Legitimacy: Uses of Irony and Humor in 17th-Century Japanese Depictions of Male Love.” In Wimal Dissanayake & Steven Bradbury, eds. Literary History, Narrative, and Culture. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989. pp. 53-60.
  • “Male Love in Early Modern Japan: A Literary Depiction of the ‘Youth’.” In Martin Duberman, Martha Vicinus, & George Chauncey, eds. Hidden From History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past. New York: New American Library, 1989. pp. 118-128.

 

Proceedings

  • “Exile from Heian: Journeying as a Pretext for Male Friendship in The Tale of Ise and The Tale of Genji.” In Eiji Sekine, ed. Proceedings of the Association of Japanese Literary Studies. Purdue University, Vol. 7, 2007. pp. 1-7.
  • “Kimi to ware no shigaku: Heian chūki no otoko no yūai.” In Miki Norito, ed. Nihon bungaku kōenkai kōenroku. Nihon Kenkyū Center, Jōsai International University, Chiba, Japan, 2004. pp. 1-10.
  • “Response to ‘The Rhythm and Play of Flesh and Words’.” In Sumie Jones, ed. Imaging/Reading Eros (Proceedings for the Conference on Sexuality and Edo Culture, 1995). East Asian Studies Center, Indiana University, Bloomington, 1996. pp. 139-141.
  • “Love in Edo Literature.” Proceedings of the Kyoto Conference on Japanese Studies, 1994 (vol. 3) pp. 357-365.

 

Book Reviews

  • Thomas Harper and Haruo Shirane, Reading the Tale of Genji: Sources from the First Millenium. Reviewed in Japanese Studies (Feb. 17, 2017) 3 pp.
  • Jim Reichert, In the Company of Men.  Reviewed in Monumenta Nipponica 62:2 (2007) pp. 17-20.
  • John Treat, Great Mirrors Shattered: Homosexuality, Orientalism, and Japan. Reviewed in Monumenta Nipponica 56:2 (2001) pp. 287-289.
  • Timon Screech, Sex and the Floating World: Erotic Images in Japan 1700-1820. Reviewed in Journal of Japanese Studies 26:2 (2000) pp. 419-22.
  • Gary Leupp, Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan. Reviewed in Journal of Japanese Studies 23:1 (1997) pp. 196-201.
  • Andrew Markus, The Willow in Autumn: Ryūtei Tanehiko, 1783-1842. Reviewed in Journal of Japanese Studies 20:2 (1994) pp. 523-28.
  • Andrew Gerstle, ed. 18th-Century Japan. Reviewed in Monumenta Nipponica 45:3 (1990) pp. 363-65.
  • Robert Leutner, Shikitei Sanba and the Comic Tradition in Edo Fiction. Reviewed in Journal of Asian Studies 46:1 (1987) pp. 158-59.
  • Lane Dunlop, tr. A Late Chrysanthemum. Reviewed in Kirkus Review LIV:8 (April 15, 1986) pp. 562-63.

 

Selected Conference Papers, Discussant’s Responses, and Invited Lectures

  • Response to Kimura, Saeko ““Les femmes et le corps ingouvernable” at the symposium La littérature classique japonaise et le sujet féminin. Centre d’Études Japonaises-INALCO & CRCAO-Université Paris Diderot, France. March 2018.
  • “Memorializing Fujiwara no Yorinaga (1120-1156) in Kamakura Period Setsuwa Tales.” Ostasiatisches Seminar, Free University-Berlin, Germany. Dec. 2016.
  • Lecture series on Ōba Minako, Takahashi Takako, and Hayashi Kyōko. Graduate Seminar in Contemporary Japanese Women’s Writing. Jōsai International University, Tokyo. Oct. 2016.
  • “Remembering Yorinaga: Institutional memory in the Heian Japanese court.” Second European Association of Japanese Studies EAJS Conference in Japan, Kobe University, Japan. Sept. 2016.
  • “Five keys to understanding globalization.” Keynote address, Model United Nations, Philadelphia, PA. 2016.
  • “Reading interiority in Fujiwara no Yorinaga’s Taiki: towards a theory of male subjectivity in Heian court diaries.” Centre de recherché sur les civilisations de l’Asie Orientale, Journée d’étude international: Expression de soi en Chine et au Japon du Moyen âge à l’époque modern, Université Paris-Diderot, France. 2015
  • “Hiroshima Peace Memorial: The Atomic Dome as a contested site of memory.” Special lecture to Japanese Program, Université Paris-Diderot, France. 2015.
  • “Discourses of victimization in East Asia: Hiroshima Peace Memorial as a site of competing and evolving memory.” Tenth Nordic Association of Japanese Studies NAJS Conference, Helsinki, Finland. 2014.
  • “The ‘Honor World’ and its transformation in early Edo Japan: exploring the moral philosophy of Yagyū Munenori, Miyamoto Musashi, and Yamamoto Tsunetomo in relation to Saikaku’s fiction.” Journée d’étude internationale: Le guerrier dans la littérature japonaise de l’époque d’Edo (17e siècle), Université Paris-Diderot, France. 2014.
  • “Generic innovation and male self-representation in Fujiwara Yorinaga’s Taiki.” Annual Conference of the Nordic Association of Japanese and Korean Studies NAJAKS, University of Bergen, Norway. 2013.
  • “Issues of gender and genre in Fujiwara Yorinaga’s court diary Taiki.” Special lecture to Japanese Division, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China. 2013.
  • “Fujiwara Yorinaga no kanbun nikki Taiki: jendā to janru o megutte.” Lecture series Jimbutsu de kataru nihon bunka, Japan Study Center, Jōsai International University, Chiba, Japan. 2010.
  • “Gender and Subjectivity in Japanese Poetry of Male Friendship.” Faculty panel presentation, Gender Identity, Sexuality, Social Justice Issues. Rutgers Libraries Diversity Education Initiative, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. 2009.
  • Panel discussant. Countering Global Tragedy in Japan and Sudan. Urban Issues Institute, Essex County College, Newark, NJ. 2009.
  • “Resources for Teaching the Atomic Bombings of Japan.” Teaching Asia Workshop. Mid-Atlantic Region Association for Asian Studies, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. 2008.
  •  “Reading/Misreading the Tale of Genji.” Invited presentation at Symposium on Undergraduate Teaching “Building Literary Toolboxes,” Program in Comparative Literature, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. 2008.
  • “The Interplay of Illustration and Text in Saikaku’s Tales.” Invited presentation, “Narrative, Narrativehood, Narrativity, and Nonnarrative in Japanese Prose of the Edo Period,” Universita’ Pontificia Salesiana, Rome, Italy. 2007.
  • “Male Friendship in Japanese Court Literature: Rhetorical Structures and the Hope of Transcendence.” Guest Lecture, Ostasiatisches Seminar, Free University, Berlin, Germany. 2006.
  • Discussant: “Gender, Performance, and Modernity.” Conference on New Gender Constructs, Heidelberg University, Germany. 2004.
  • “Heian chūki no okeru yūai no shigaku.” Guest Lecture, Dōshisha University, Kyoto, Japan. 2004.
  • “A Lover of Women and a Friend of Men: The Hero in Mid-Heian Court Literature.” Distinguished Speaker Series, German Institute for Japanese Studies, Tokyo, Japan. 2003.
  • “Kimi to ware no shigaku: Heian chūki no otoko no yūai.” Japanese Literature Lecture Series, Jōsai International University, Chiba, Japan. 2003.
  • “A Poetics of Courtly Male Friendship in Heian Japan.” Annual Distinguished Scholar Lecture, Trinity College, Hartford, CT. 2002.
  • “Friendship as a Way of Life in Heian Japan.” School of Historical Studies Colloquium, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ. 2001.
  • Panelist: “Trauma Themes in Undergraduate Curricula.” Annual Conference on Undergraduate Teaching. Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. 2000.
  • Discussant: “Translating from a Language One Does Not Know.” Graduate Transliteratures Project. Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. 2000.
  • “Time and Memory of Auschwitz and Hiroshima: Victimhood in a Global Culture.” Center for the Critical Analysis of Contemporary Culture, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. 2000.
  • Discussant and Chair: “Philosophy, Religion, and Culture.” Graduate Student and Secondary Schools Teacher Symposium on Japanese Studies, Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ. 1998.
  • Discussant: “Creative Women of Late Tokugawa Japan.” Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C. 1998.
  • “Ōta Nanpo to Kitamura Kigin: Edo kōki no nanshoku no yukue.” International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto, Japan. 1998.
  • “Paradigms of Male Friendship in the Ise Monogatari.” The Harry S Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. 1998.
  • “A Poetics of Male Friendship in the Ise Monogatari.” East Asian Languages and Cultures Faculty Lecture Series, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. 1998.
  • “The Gender of Drink in Early Modern Japan.” East Asia Colloquium, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. 1997.
  • Organizer & Chair: “Overtext: The Play of Multi-layered Reading in Edo Texts and Images.” Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL. 1997.
  • “Dangerous Pleasures: Gender and Drink in Early Modern Japan.” Taniguchi Symposium on Saké in Japanese Culture, National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan. 1996.
  • “The Manly Image in Edo Culture.” Lecture in Conjunction with the Weston Exhibit of Lacquerware Inrō (Medicine Boxes). Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. 1996.
  • “Bridging and Substitution as Mechanisms of Desire in The Tale of Genji.” In panel “Erotic Dimensions of The Tale of Genji,” Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting, Honolulu, HI. 1996.
  • “Theorizing Sex/Gender in Early Modern Japan: Kitamura Kigin’s Maidenflowers and Wild Azaleas.” Social Science Research Center Seminar, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ. 1995.
  • Discussant: “The Rhythm and Play of Flesh and Words.” International Conference on Sexuality and Edo Culture 1750-1850, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. 1995.
  • “Figures of Worship: The Response to Boys on the Kabuki Stage in 17th-Century Japanese Vernacular Prose.” International Conference on Cross-Gender Casting in Kabuki and Shakespeare, Seiwa University, Nishinomiya, Japan. 1995.
  • “Formulating a Theory of Women’s Writing in 17th-Century Japan: Kitamura Kigin’s Ominaeshi monogatari.” In panel “What’s ‘Early Modern’ and ‘Japanese’ About Early Modern Japan?” Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting, Washington, DC. 1995.
  • “Love in Edo Literature.” Kyoto Conference on Japanese Studies, International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto, Japan. 1994.
  • Discussant: “Ihara Saikaku’s Women.” Washington and Southeast Region Japan Seminar, University of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA. 1994.
  • “Today’s Tales of Yesterday.” In panel “Gender and Power in Medieval Japanese Texts—New Directions in Research and Teaching.” Association for Asian Studies Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference, Ramapo College, Rahway, NJ. 1993.
  • Discussant: “Travel in the Arts and Literature of Tokugawa Japan.” Association for Asian Studies Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference, West Chester University, West Chester, PA. 1992.
  • “Buddhist Thought in 17th-Century Discourses of Sexuality.” East Asian Faculty Colloquium, University of California-Berkeley, 1992.
  • Discussant: “The Subversive Role of Fantasy in Contemporary Japanese Fiction.” Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting. Washington, DC. 1992.
  • “Conceptions of Love in Haikai Poetics.” Regional Seminar on Japan, University of California-Berkeley. Berkeley, CA. 1992.
  • “Religion, Ethics, and the Art of Love in Tokugawa Japan.” Program on Popular Japanese Culture, Stanford University. Stanford, CA. 1992.
  • “Spiritual Dimensions of Male Beauty in Japanese Buddhism.” American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA. 1990.
  • “Literature and Legitmacy: Uses of Irony and Humor in 17th-Century Depictions of Male Love in Japan.” Conference on Literary History East and West, University of Hawaii and East-West Center, Honolulu, HI. 1988.
  • “Buddhism and Gender: The Legend of Kūkai.” American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Boston, MA. 1988.
  • “Yukio Mishima’s Temple of Dawn.” Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, Brattleboro, VT. 1988.
  • “The Study of Ihara Saikaku in the West.” Colloquium Orientologicum, University of Massachusetts-Amherst. 1985.
  • “The Vocabulary of Love in Saikaku’s Nanshoku ōkagami.” Fulbright Foundation Seminar, Tokyo, Japan. 1983.
  • “The Place of Nanshoku ōkagami in Saikaku’s Oeuvre.” Association for Asian Studies New England Regional Conference, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. 1980.