The third Saikaku-Bakin symposium will be held on 20-22 March 2025 at Collège de France and Paris Cité University in Paris. Its goal is to foster conversation among scholars working on Early Modern Japanese narrative across the entire Edo period. The presentations will explore the ways in which Japanese authors of the Early Modern period attempted to make their writing available to new audiences through a wide array of rewriting processes. The relationship and boundaries between prose genres and other narrative or non-narrative forms, including images and performance will also be considered. Possible questions include:
What do we mean by terms like “popular literature” and “popularization”? Can these terms be applied productively to Edo-period literature?
What role do forms of rewriting such as translation, adaptation, pastiche, parody, etc. play in Edo-period literature? How did writers of the Edo period experiment with different generic forms and ways of thinking about composition itself?
Can early modern writers and their works inform our current efforts to bring literature to new audiences via translation and other strategies?
Program
Thursday March 20th
Edo Narrative
Collège de France, Institut des Civilisations - Salle Françoise Héritier
5:30-7:00pm Q&A
Panel 1
7:00-7:30pm
Chair: Paul Schalow (Rutgers University)
David ATHERTON (Harvard University) What is fiction for? Ueda Akinari’s Kamakura tales and the bounds of narrative
Andrew GERSTLE (SOAS University of London) Reading jōruri narratives
Friday March 21th M
Popular Literature
Paris Cité University - Amphithéâtre Alan Turing
Panel 2
11:00-11:30am Q&A
11:30am-12:00pm
Chair: Marianne Simon-Oikawa (Université Paris Cité)
Will FLEMING (UC Santa Barbara) Jippensha Ikku’s practice of serial publication and the emergence of an interactive readership
HATANAKA Chiaki (Keai University) Saikaku’s self-replication for the mass production of his works
Angelo WONG (Columbia University) Hyakumonogatari and setsuwa pastiche in Shokoku hyakumonogatari’s depictions of the return of dead wives
Panel 3
2:30-3:30pm Q&A
3:30-4:00pm Chair: Daniel Struve (Université Paris Cité)
Cristian PALLONE (University of Bergamo) Yoshiwara goes to theatre: Some considerations regarding the evolution of sharebon in the Tenmei and Kansei eras
William HEDBERG (Arizona State University) Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s Later Battles of Coxinga and the Edo-period discovery of Taiwan
Panel 4
4:30-5:30pm Q&A 5:30-6:00pm
Chair: Gérald Peloux (Inalco)
Paola MASCHIO (University of Milan) The spoken language of women in Shikitei Sanba’s Ukiyo buro
David J. GUNDRY (UC Davis) The question of humor in Ihara Saikaku’s fiction
Saturday March 22
Popularization
Paris Cité University - Amphithéâtre Alan Turing
Panel 5
10-11:30am Q&A
11:30am-12:00pm Chair: Matthias Hayek (EPHE - PSL)
Nicolas MOLLARD (Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3) When philological essays disguise as fiction: an analysis of Kyokutei Bakin’s Mukashigatari shichiya no kura (1811)
Ye YUAN (Oberlin College) Rewriting Japanese story into Chinese form: and the unruly woman in early modern Japan
Kevin MULHOLLAND (University of Montana) Humor, historical consciousness and Engi kyōgiden information culture in Kyokutei Bakin’s Musō Byōei kochō monogatari
Panel 6
2:30-4:00pm Q&A 4:00-4:30pm
Chair: Nicolas Mollard (Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3)
Morgaine SETZER-MORI (Ruhr University Bochum) Historiographical elements and the construction of historical meaning in Takai Ranzan’s Atsumori gaiden: Kitan Aoba no fue (1813)
Jeffrey KNOTT (National Institute of Japanese Literature) Premodern Genji commentaries and Tanehiko’s Nise Murasaki
Shan REN (University of Oregon) The alluring poisonous woman: Oren in Kyokutei Bakin’s Shinpen kinpeibai
Roundtable Discussion 4:30-5:30pm
Jeffrey NEWMARK (University of Winnipeg), Glynne WALLEY (University of Oregon) Bringing Edo literature to new audiences: translation, pedagogy, digital tools
Venues
Collège de France, Institut des Civilisations – Salle François Héritier, 52, rue du Cardinal-Lemoine – 75005 Paris (March 20)
Université Paris Cité, Amphithéâtre Turing, Bâtiment Sophie Germain, 8 place Aurélie Nemours – 75013 Paris (March 21-22)