Taisho Magazines and Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s Vision of Hell
The father of the Japanese short story Ryunosuke Akutagawa shares his dark vision about what it means to be an artist. We’re taking a look at Japan in the 1910s and 1920s, the era of the Taisho Democr...
31 Maj 202239min
The Women Writers of Meiji Japan: Ichiyo Higuchi
Last episode, we talked about the coming of the West and the way it impacted Japanese literature. This time we’re talking about women as they take up a prominent position in the story of Japanese lite...
6 Maj 202237min
Meiji Literature and Japan’s Most Famous Literary Cat: Soseki Natsume and I Am a Cat
In this episode, we’re looking at the Meiji Era of Japanese history and its literature. The shogunate is replaced.Japan looks outward to the West and inward toward itself.And a man named Natsume Sosek...
13 Apr 202230min
Kaidan—Japan’s Ghost Stories: Ueda Akinari
In this episode, we’ll be talking about Ueda Akinari and his Tales of Moonlight and Rain, some of the most influential Japanese ghost stories ever written. A raging intellectual debate. A supernatural...
26 Feb 202232min
High and Low Literature in Edo Japan: Ihara Saikaku
How does “this fleeting world” transform from a Buddhist precept to a name for the red-light district? What did reading look like in early Modern Japan? And how many dildos does a man need to pack for...
8 Feb 202226min
Setsuwa and Medieval Japanese Buddhism
Enjoy the story of a vengeful would-be lover who turns into a 40-foot snake, a sharp-witted woman with criticisms of her husband’s equipment, and a curmudgeonly Buddhist priest who learns to love poet...
13 Jan 202229min
Yoshitsune Ballads and Tomoe Drama
We're talking about two central genres of medieval Japanese literature—the warrior ballad and Noh drama. We’ll see two characters from The Tale of the Heike again, including the valiant female warrior...
21 Dec 202132min
The Tale of the Heike
The great samurai epic and the rise of the samurai class. Buy your copy of The Tale of the Heike on Bookshop to support the podcast. Transcript, notes and sources at the podcast episode website. Let ...
4 Dec 202125min
