UBC Japanese Library Resources Blog

Featuring Alcvin Takegawa Ramos on biwa and shakuhachi and Satomi Saeki on koto
With commentary by Dr. Jan Walls, Professor Emeritus, SFU
Saturday, October 25, 2008 at 2:00 pm
at the National Nikkei Heritage Centre, Ellipse Lobby

Alcvin Takegawa Ramos and Satomi Saeki will offer moving new musical interpretations of the classic poetry of The Tale of Genji. Recitations of selected poems from the tale in both English and the original Japanese will provide links between their renderings of the themes of love, the seasons, solitude, and impermanence perfectly suited to the haunting sounds of shakuhachi, biwa, and koto.

For more information about this event, check the event poster.

Lecture by UBC Asian Studies Professor Joshua Mostow
Sunday, October 19, 2008 at 2:00 pm
at the Royal Bank Cinema, Chan Centre for Performing Arts, UBC
Followed by a special reception with the speaker.

This talk will explore how women were exposed to the Tale of Genji in the early modern period, especially through manuals of feminine etiquette. It will trace how this continued into the 20th century, despite the radical changes that transformed Japan, and the place of Genji in such pop culture genres as manga and anime.

Professor Mostow is an internationally acclaimed specialist of classical Japanese literature and visual culture, with a particular focus on the interplay of text and image in pre-modern Japan.

For more information about this event, check the event poster.