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Kendra Strand will discuss a selection of pictorial representations of The Tale of Genji (Murasaki Shikibu, ca. 1008), a masterpiece of premodern Japanese literature and, according to some, the world’s first novel. Strand will begin by introducing her research on the Illustrated Scrolls of The Tale of Genji, an exploration of the relationships between text, image, allusion, and memory in the earliest extant manuscript of The Tale of Genji from the twelfth century. She will then discuss her work on creating a model of one chapter from the Illustrated Scrolls using authentic materials in collaboration with faculty in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and UI Center for the Book. This talk is based in part on Strand’s recently published chapter in the Norton Critical Edition of The Tale of Genji (Dennis Washburn, trans. and ed., 2021). 

Join us on Zoom: https://uiowa.zoom.us/j/92811009772

Kendra Strand is an assistant professor in the Department of Asian and Slavic Languages and Cultures. She specializes in premodern Japanese literature and visual culture, with expertise in travel writing, poetry, calligraphy, and picture scrolls (emaki). Her research is founded in examining the historical contexts in which works of literature and art were created. She is currently working on a manuscript that explores three fourteenth-century travel diaries and the landscapes they describe, entitled An Unfamiliar Place: Poetry, Power, and the Travel Diary in Medieval Japan.