On Thursday, September 25 we welcome Torquil Duthie, Associate Professor of Japanese literature at the University of California, Los Angeles to present on his new book Man’yōshū and the Imperial Imagination in Early Japan (Brill, 2014). Professor Duthie will discuss how different volumes of the Man’yōshū are configured as an imperial collection, and how certain exemplary poems in the first two volumes negotiate the collective memories and aspirations of the imperial court in expressions of praise for reigning sovereigns, mourning for deceased crown princes, and journeys through the newly defined imperial landscape.
