Mixed Messages: Classical Literature in 17th- and 18th-Century ‘Books for Women’

Lecture information:
Although Confucian scholars in the early Edo period made frequent claims regarding the pernicious effect of classical Japanese literature on the morals of women, by the eighteenth century classical literature came to occupy a prominent place in the flourishing segment of the contemporary book market known as josho, or books for women. Examining both the selection of content and the deployment of that content on the printed page, this talk considers what josho reveal about the place of classical literature both in the education of women and in the early modern book market.

Lecturer Information:
Jamie Newhard is an assistant professor of premodern Japanese language and literature at Washington University in St. Louis. Her interests include premodern narrative, poetry, and poetics; medieval and early modern reception of classical literature; the history of literary scholarship and thought; book and publishing history; and gender issues in premodern literature. She has just finished her first book, titled Knowing the Amorous Man: A History of Scholarship on Tales of Ise.