Eccentric Spaces, Hidden Histories: Narrative, Ritual, and Royal Authority from The Chronicles of Japan

After The Tale of Genji, the greatest work of classical Japanese literature is arguably the fourteenth-century historical narrative, The Tale of the Heike. To date, however, most English-language scholarship on The Tale of the Heike has tended to focus on one well-known variant of the work, resulting in an incomplete view of the tale’s narrative world. This lecture will highlight some of the major themes in David Bialock’s recent book, Eccentric Spaces, Hidden Histories, which open up fresh perspectives on medieval Heike narrative by connecting it to a range of problems centered on narrative, ritual, space, and Japan’s changing views of China from the Nara to the early medieval periods.