Waka et al Symposium

The symposium Waka et al took place at Stanford University on May 2nd and 3rd, 2025. The symposium explored classical, medieval, and early modern Japanese poetry as a place of intersection for other genres, disciplines, media, and practices. The next symposium is tentatively scheduled for May 1-2, 2027. 

It was co-organized by the Center for East Asian Studies and the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Stanford, and the Tsunoda Ryūsaku Center of Japanese Culture at Waseda University.

It was made possible by a grant from Japan Fund, Freeman Spogli Institute.

Research Presentations

Searching for the ‘People of Kara’: On the Category of ‘Toraijin’ Literature in Man’yōshū and Beyond

Marjorie Burge (Assistant Prof., University of Colorado, Boulder)

Nakanishi Susumu sparked intense debate in 1973 when he argued that Yamanoue no Okura (660?-733?), one of the most renowned and peculiar poets of the eighth century poetry anthology Man’yōshū, was a first-generation immigrant from the Korean peninsula. Some fifty years later, the validity of this claim remains the subject of some debate, but the evidence to support it is compelling: Okura’s name, very much unlike other contemporary autochtone ‘Japanese’ names, appears to be derived from that of his purported father, Okuni, and his education in the Chinese classics was unmatched for many of his generation, leading to his selection for a diplomatic mission to Tang China in 701. An immigrant background does help explain many of the peculiarities of both his known biography and his poetic oeuvre. If Okura was indeed a first-generation immigrant, brought to Japan as a toddler and raised there by Paekche refugee parents, was he alone in making his impact on the Japanese poetic scene? This paper contextualizes the career of Okura in the broader history of the late-seventh century boom in written culture in the Japanese archipelago spurred by the contributions of Paekche refugees, and puts his work into conversation with other poets represented in Man’yōshū who have similar first-generation backgrounds, including Asada no Yasu (fl. 720s-740s), Takaoka no Kōchi (fl.710s-740s), and Tori no Senryō (fl.710s-720s). While the impact of such voices on the overall development of the waka tradition may have been minimal, their inclusion in Man’yōshū speaks to the inclusive and cosmopolitan nature of early waka poetry, and invites us to consider the category of ‘toraijin’ literature within the evolving late seventh-early eighth century literary landscape.

A Legacy Lasting Ten Thousand Years: Man’yōshū and the Textual Afterlives of the Ōtomo

Danica Truscott (Lecturer, Harvard University)

In its current established format, Japan’s oldest vernacular poetic collection, Man’yōshū 万葉集 (Collection for a Myriad Ages, ca. late eighth century), consists of twenty volumes with over 4,500 entries. In addition, the final stages of its compilation are believed to have been executed almost exclusively by the Ōtomo, an old noble lineage whose works populate several volumes. Our understanding of these poets, however, is the result of a transmission history that can be best described as uneven in its treatment of them. In this paper, I examine examples of the Ōtomo family’s “afterlife,” from commentaries on their works to author-based collections created posthumously. Following D.F. McKenzie’s stance regarding the importance of a text’s material form in determining its meaning, I explore how changes in format, medium, and standards of practice impacted the experience of, and consequently knowledge about, poetry written by the Ōtomo family. What can the conditions of these materials and their creation tell us about the transmission of works by Man’yōshū’s major contributors across the centuries and our present-day understanding of this now renowned literary family?

Empathy for the Dead: Hitomaro’s Poem on a Dead Man among the Rocks

Torquil Duthie (Prof., University of California, Los Angeles)

This presentation examines various different readings of Hitomaro’s so-called “Dead Man among the Rocks” poem sequence (MYS 2: 220-22). I argue that no matter the conceptual framework of these readings (lyrical, ritual, Marxist, etc), all converge around the problem of empathy and the question of the dead man’s personhood. My aim is therefore to bring these various readings into conversation with each other in order to respond to what my own interpretation argues is the poem’s demand of empathy from its readers.

Almost Chokusenshū—Collections Compiled but Unrecognized as Imperial Anthologies of Japanese Court Poetry

Małgorzata Citko-DuPlantis (Assistant Prof., University of Tennessee, Knoxville)

In the long history of imperial waka anthologies, there were also collections compiled to become chokusenshū but were never recognized as such. What happened to these collections? How have they been treated and researched in the field of waka studies? What decided their fate and status in the history of waka scholarship? Tackling these questions, the paper considers examples of Fujiwara Kiyosuke’s (1104–1177) Shokushika wakashū (Continued Collection of Verbal Flowers, 1165) commissioned by Retired Emperor Nijō (1143–1165) and Prince’s Munenaga’s (1311–1385?) Shin’yō wakashū (New Collection of Leaves of Japanese Poetry, ca. 1381) commissioned by Emperor Chōkei (1343–1394) of the Southern Court (nanchō) during the Nanbokuchō period (1336–1392). Shokushika wakashū was unrecognized as an imperial anthology due to Nijō’s premature death, while Shin’yō wakashū is considered to be a quasi-chokusenshū although other imperial collections, included in the nijūichidaishū, were in late medieval Japan commissioned by the Norther Court (hokuchō) and sponsored by the Ashikaga shoguns. Analyzing waka collections meant to become chokusenshū but not granted such statuses, the paper contemplates how their exclusion from the prestigious chokusenshū denomination, and thus from the Japanese literary canon, continues to affect the study of premodern Japanese poetry and literature.

Waka’s Origin Stories in the Kokinshū Prefaces

Gustav Heldt (Prof., University of Virginia)

This presentation will explore the origin stories provided for vernacular Japanese poetry in both of the prefaces to the Kokinshū in order to identify the primary characteristics of those narratives that are produced through their differences from one another. Although both texts describe Susa-no-o’s song at Izumo as the first example of a 31-syllable poem, they also associate it with other songs by entirely different kami: Toyo-tama-hime and Hiko-hoho-demi in the case of the mana preface and Shita-teru-hime in the case of the kana preface.  Through an examination of the songs by those three deities found in Nihon shoki, I will propose reading the Kokinshū prefaces' accounts of waka's origins as narratives that stress not only its metrical characteristics, but also different rhetorical aspects of its language.

When Waka is Not in Dialogue

Phuong Ngo (Assistant Prof., Bard College)

In waka (classical Japanese poetry) studies, the genre has often been prized for its role as a form of elevated dialogue, with zōtōka (exchanged poetry) receiving the bulk of scholarly attention when the specific mode of composition is called into question. Indeed, waka’s ubiquitousness as a means of communication among the Heian nobility during the early and mid-Heian period speaks to its versatility and universality that transcends the notion of poetry or literature, and it was not until the late Heian and early medieval period that waka came to be formalized as a literary pursuit with the poetic treatises of Fujiwara no Shunzei and Teika, among others. On the other hand, dokueika (solitary composition) has often been relegated to the sideline and defined not by what it is but rather by what it is not (i.e. not zōtōka) or by what it lacks (namely the presence of a specific addressee). In this presentation, I propose a revision of dokueika, highlighting its inherent dialogicality and potential for generating further dialogues. I also examine the performativity of dokueika, noting its conscious self-fashioning and awareness of its positionality. Ultimately, I argue for the necessity to consider dokueika as its own category, independent of other modes of composition and warranting further scrutiny.

Theorizing Japanese Rhetoric: Waka and the Epideictic Tradition

Estée Crenshaw (Assistant Prof., Utah Valley University)

In this presentation, I respond to longstanding claims that Japan lacked a rhetorical tradition prior to the import of Western rhetoric during the Meiji era. I do so by theorizing Japan’s premodern waka tradition within the epideictic tradition of rhetoric with a focus on the aesthetic ideal aware (“sensibility”) insofar as it guided poetic theory and composition. Although rhetoric is often thought of as tied to democracy and civic discourse because of its prominence in ancient Athenian society, this narrow view of rhetoric not only ignores the poetic origins of Greek rhetoric as seen in the Homeric epics and odes of Pindar, but it also constrains theories of rhetoric outside the Greco-Roman/Euro-American sphere, obscuring language practices that, despite not resembling public oratory as conceived in the West, nonetheless might be understood as rhetorical. By considering waka within the realm of epideictic rhetoric, the intersection of artistic and rhetorical aims in poetic practice is made apparent and the underlying aesthetico-suasive nature of waka as seen in the concept aware can be more fully examined.

Kokinshū Structuralisms, c 1950s to the present

Mary Gilstad (PhD Candidate, Yale University)

In this paper, I sketch a history of post-war structuralist interpretations of the Kokinshū in both Japanese and English academic writing, focusing on those which emphasize the principles of holism (reading the anthology as a whole as a work of literature) and part-whole relationships (reading parts of the anthology alone and in concert for various aims). By taking stock of this history and highlighting the multiple, conflicting theories and the uses to which they have been put, I argue that the question of how to read the anthology’s poems and other metadata-like text together is a fundamental and productive problem that not only deserves renewed attention for the study of the Kokinshū but also provides new avenues for reading and teaching waka literature more broadly. This is part of an article I am preparing out of my doctoral dissertation.

Life Between the Lines: Poetic Prefaces, Postfaces, and the Paratextual Self

Pier Carlo Tommasi (Assistant Prof., Vassar College)

The author of a literary text often remains an elusive, self-effacing presence within their work, possibly forever beyond our reach. This is especially true in the case of waka, a convention-driven genre whose reliance on fixed topics (kadai) creates a virtual reality more often than not divorced from the poet’s experience. However, much can be gained by critically recentering the author’s life and examining the techniques by which autobiographical experiences are subtly encrypted within the text. As I argue in this presentation, it is often in the “surroundings” of the poetic verse—be it an anthology’s preface, its concluding and usually underrated miscellaneous section (zōka), or even the headnotes (kotobagaki) and self-annotations (sachū)—that the poet’s persona reveals its true colors, “true” at least to the pragmatics of the con-text if not to reality itself. By recasting the poetic paratext as a form of life writing and exploring the ethical and emotional tension between empirical authors and their audiences, I will interrogate how and why late medieval waka became a powerful medium for authorial self-fashioning. I will also make the case for reading these slice-of-life fragments as personal narratives that ultimately transcend the individual self to tighten communal bonds and shape political imagination.

Onna no uta as Constitutive Form 

Eric Esteban (PhD Candidate, Yale University)

When Ki no Tsurayuki wrote his preface to the Kokinshū at the beginning of the tenth century, the editor famously diagnosed that the reason Ono no Komachi’s poetry “lacked strength” was because a woman had written them. This statement has come to be remembered as the earliest attestation of onna no uta “the woman’s poem,” an ontological distinction that looms large in the study of a premodern canon celebrated for the alleged centrality it has afforded its women writers. What then constituted onna no uta?

The question has been approached through linguistic analyses, in which we glean patterns from regularities in poetic images or grammatical styles; through a feminist lens, in which we listen for the poetess who lyricizes the specificity of the noblewoman’s experience; and through historicism, in which we look to an archive of when past poets have defined what they believed this genre to be.

This paper investigates the associations the word carried during a time when the terms of poetics were being re-negotiated. Turning to a cluster of remarks recorded in poetry matches from the late 12th century, I show how, although women’s poetry may not have escaped its legacy of “lacking strength,” the critic at this time would utilize this linkage to excuse a poem’s faults. Close reading of poetry on fixed topics demonstrates that gender cannot be disentangled from the rhetorical parameters under which the medieval poet wrote.

Waka, The Untitled Book, and “Scattered and Lost Tales”

Joseph Sorensen (Associate Prof., University of California, Davis)

The Untitled Book (Mumyōzōshi) has been hailed as the first work of literary (prose) criticism in the Japanese tradition. Composed around the year 1200 by the woman known as Shunzei’s Daughter (ca. 1171-ca.1252), its significance lies in its pioneering critique of several popular tales and its role in recognizing certain texts, including The Tale of Genji (ca. 1010), as part of an emerging classical canon. The Untitled Book provides us a window into the early thirteenth century literary field, and that view is often mediated by the waka chosen to represent the many tales discussed. As a repository of information on so-called “scattered and lost tales” (san’itsu monogatari), the text is invaluable in determining not only what monogatari were being read at the time, but also what contemporary readers found praiseworthy and objectionable about them. My presentation will focus on how waka serve as a key to understanding and reconstructing some of these scattered and lost tales within The Untitled Book, with an eye towards future directions for research.

Mountain Asceticism and Waka Poetry

Unno Keisuke (Prof., Waseda University)

This presentation will trace the connection between yamabushi 山伏 mountain ascetics and waka,  discuss its development and historical significance, and also explore the relationship between poetry and social status or profession. Yamabushi ga shū 山ぶしが集 (ca 1074-77)  and Takiyama Shū 瀧山集 (before 1314) are the two earliest known waka anthologies compiled by yamabushi, but both are lost and their contents are not known at all. The presentation will focus on the partially extant Shin-hamayūshū 新浜木綿集 (1327), and in particular on the possibility of reconstructing its contents and structure from extant kohitsu-gire 古筆切 fragments and in light of related collections such as Hamayūshū 浜木綿集 (late 13th c.).

Matsukaze, Early Receipts

Tom Hare (Prof., Princeton University)

As one of the most revered plays in the noh repertory, Matsukaze exemplifies the centrality of waka poetry and poetics to the creation of sarugaku, but little attention has been given to its immediate Rezeption in the mid-15th century. This presentation will make an initial gesture toward the poetic reactions it provoked in Zenchiku and Ikkyū Sōjun.

Waka and Haikai: The Case of Chōshōshi and Bashō

Steven Carter (Prof. Emeritus, Stanford University)

Often waka and haikai seem to be entirely separate discourses. It is clear, however, that Bashō thought of haikai as a variety of waka and encouraged his disciples to carefully study the waka canon, as he did himself. And his own study went well beyond the usual list of poets and texts. In particular, he was attentive to the works of Kinoshita Chōshōshi (1569-1649), who in many ways was a model for his own patterns of lifestyle and practice.

The Last of the Shokunin utaawase

Kanechiku Nobuyuki (Prof., Waseda University)

I will examine the relationship between poetry and painting in the woodblock edition Tōsei fūzoku gojūban utaawase 当世風俗五十番歌合 by Ikebe Yoshikata 池辺義象 (text) and Asai Chū 浅井忠(illustrations). Published in 1907, this work stands as the final installment in the Shokunin Utaawase tradition that began in the 13th century. I will also consider the connections between this tradition and the hanafuda card game.

The First Shokunin utaawase and the Future of Medieval Poetry

Ariel Stilerman (Assistant Prof., Stanford University)

This presentation focuses on the Tōhoku-in shokunin utaawase emaki. Framed as a poetic contest (uta awase), this work features waka compositions attributed to non-elite poets—such as a physician, a blacksmith, or a shrine maiden—accompanied by the traditional judgments as well as vivid images of each poet’s appearance and tools. Though it purports to record an actual contest from 1212, this work’s historical veracity is questionable, with evidence pointing to its creation by aristocrats in the early 14th century. This presentation approaches the Shokunin Utaawase as a space where aristocrats imagined the lives of working people, and ultimately used these fresh perspectives to push the boundaries of waka’s form and meaning.