Bøger i Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies serien

A unique document that opens a window onto the world of Buddhist religious experience - especially for women - in high classical Japan, the time of Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book and Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji.

Examining the pivotal relationship between Japan and Southeast Asia, as it has changed and endured into the Indo-Pacific Era

Shows that overseas Meiji-period travel writers struck out to create a dynamic new type of travel literature, one that had a solid foundation in traditional Japanese kikobungaku yet also displayed influence from the West.

Presents a study in English of Kamo no Chomei, one of the most important literary figures of medieval Japan. The book offers an original reading of his texts, while at the same time casting a light upon intellectual preoccupations that were central to the times.

A translation of Fujiwara Teika's only successful work of fiction

Published in 1906, Essays on the Modern Japanese Church was the first Japanese-language history of Christianity in Meiji Japan. Yamaji Aizan's account describes the reintroduction of Christianity to Japan - its development, rapid expansion, and decline - and its place in the social, political, and intellectual life of the Meiji period.

Yosano Akiko (1878-1942) has long been recognized as one of the most important literary figures of prewar Japan. A major part of her career was devoted to work on the Japanese classics and, in particular, the great Heian period text The Tale of Genji. This study traces for the first time the full range of Akiko's involvement with this text.

Senshi was born in 964 and died in 1035, in the Heian period of Japanese history (794-1185). Most of the poems discussed here are what may loosely be called Buddhist poems, since they deal with Buddhist scriptures, practices, and ideas.

Kurihara Sadako was born in Hiroshima in 1913, and she was there on August 6, 1945. Already a poet before she experienced the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, she used her poetic talents to describe the blast and its aftermath. In 1946 she published Kuroi tamago (Black Eggs), poems from before, during, and immediately after the war.

A fascinating woman's diary from tenth-century Japan.

Explores the arguments for and against coeducation, as presented in newspaper and magazine articles, cartoons, student-authored school newsletters, and roundtable discussions published in the Japanese press, as these reforms were being implemented in the post-World War II era.

Sheds light on the sources of power for three prominent women of the Meiji period: Meiji Empress Haruko; public speaker, poet, and diarist Nakajima Shoen; and educator and prolific author Shimoda Utako.

In Childhood Years, originally published serially in a literary magazine between 1955 and 1956, Tanizaki Jun'ichiro (1886-1965) takes a meandering look back on his early life in Tokyo. He reflects on his upbringing, family, and the capital city with a conversational-and not necessarily honest-eye, offering insights into his later life and his writing.