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Monday, February 20, 5:00-6:30pm, HUMN 135

Joshua Frydman, University of Oklahoma

Excavations in recent decades have uncovered inscriptions of poetry from the seventh through tenth centuries in Japan, many of which are on objects that were thrown away, as well as “graffiti” on buildings.  These inscriptions comprised networks of "informal" transmission of poems and tropes separate from more formal avenues of circulation. A comparative approach to similar behavior in other premodern societies may explain why the early Japanese created these inscriptions, and offer paradigms for understanding how formal and informal methods of literary transmission coexisted in early Japan.

Co-sponsored by Asian Languages and Civilizations