Oberlin College East Asian Studies welcomes Matthew Fraleigh
Matthew Fraleigh is Associate Professor of East Asian Literature and Culture at Brandeis University. He is broadly interested in Sino-Japanese cultural exchange from antiquity through the modern period and is now completing a book that examines how Japanese poets from the 17th through the 19th centuries conceptualized classical Chinese poetry.
Yanagawa Seigan (1789–1858) and his wife Kōran (1804–79) were two of the great poets of nineteenth-century Japan. They wrote in literary Sinitic, or classical Chinese, a written language of enduring importance far beyond China’s borders. The couple traveled together all around Japan, building the relationships and networks that would eventually give them national prominence. In the final years of the Tokugawa shogunate, both Seigan and Kōran became concerned about Japan's fate in the face of Euro-American incursion. Seigan died before he could be punished for his stealthy political activities, but Kōran was imprisoned for six months. Their works at once display mastery of a poetic tradition and depict Japan on the brink of monumental change. In this talk, Matthew Fraleigh will discuss Seigan and Kōran's lives and poetry as well as the culture of Sinitic poetry in early modern Japan. The talk will also feature a virtual guest appearance by Fraleigh's collaborator on a recent book, The Same Moon Shines on All: The Lives and Poetry of Yanagawa Seigan and Kōran, distinguished scholar and translator of Chinese poetry Jonathan Chaves, who will read his translations of poems by both.
