Medieval Studies is hosting a festive celebration for their faculty members who have new books out or on the way—one of them is Gian Piero Persiani, assistant professor at EALC. His book Poets, Patrons, and the Public: Poetry as Cultural Phenomenon in Courtly Japan has been recently published by Brill.
The event will be held on November 12th from 5-7 in Levis 210.
Book Abstract:
Waka poetry was all the rage in tenth-century, courtly Japan. Every educated person composed it, emperors and consorts sponsored it, and societal interest in it was at an all-time high. Persiani’s book offers an unprecedentedly broad and vivid portrayal of this season of literary flourishing, revealing the multitude of factors that contributed to it, as well as the social, political, and cultural reasons behind waka’s rise.
Deftly combining sociological theory and social and intellectual history with insightful readings of a wealth of primary texts—some never before discussed in English—the book is both a history of waka in the Heian period and a study of Heian court society through the lens of waka.