Contact Information
707 S. Mathews Avenue, M/C146
Urbana, IL 61801
United States
217-300-6266
Office Hours
Biography
My goal as a historian of ancient literatures and cultures is to recover and convey something of the complexity of premodern literary and artistic phenomena. I work in both synchronic (organization of the cultural field at a specific point in time) and diachronic (development over time) contexts. I am currently completing a manuscript on the boom of waka poetry in the tenth century (ca. 890-970). Other projects include a study of the uses of Sinitic culture in Heian Japan and a history of the reception of the 36 Immortal Poets. Before coming to Illinois, I taught at Oxford University and was Resident Foreign Researcher at the National Institute of Japanese Literature (NIJL) in Tokyo.
Research Interests
Origins, structure, and development of the literary field
Waka poetry and poetics
Reception and uses of Sinitic culture in Japan
Medieval, early-modern, and modern reception of Heian literature
East Asian literary cultures
Education
PhD Columbia University
Courses Taught
EALC398 Writers and Sino-Japanese Cultural Interactions 600-1900
EALC/CWL 275 Masterpieces of East Asian Literature
EALC 305 - Premodern Japanese Literature in Translation I
JPNS 407 Introduction to Classical Japanese
EALC199 Adaptation and Appropriation in Japanese Cultural History
EALC 550 - Itineraries in Waka Culture
selected publications
JOURNAL ARTICLES
Persiani, G. P. (2020). The Public, the Private, and the In-Between: Poetry Exchanges as Court Diplomacy in Mid-Heian Japan. Japan Review, 35, 7-29. https://doi.org/10.15055/00007600