{"id":566,"date":"2010-02-13T08:56:52","date_gmt":"2010-02-13T13:56:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bourdaghs.com\/blog\/?p=566"},"modified":"2010-02-13T08:56:52","modified_gmt":"2010-02-13T13:56:52","slug":"oe-kenzaburo-at-the-university-of-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bourdaghs.com\/blog\/?p=566","title":{"rendered":"Oe Kenzaburo at the University of Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"

Below is the announcement for an event we’re pretty excited about here. The Independent <\/em>newspaper (London) called Oe “the world’s greatest living novelist in any language.” I’ve just started reading his Suishi<\/a> <\/em>(Death by drowning, 2009)???which Oe says is likely to be his last full-length novel. It’s a compelling work in the vain of Natsukashii toshi e no tegami<\/a><\/em> (Letters to a Sweet Bygone Year, 1987) or Jinsei no shinseki<\/a><\/em>?(An Echo of Heaven<\/a>, 1989): an aging novelist travels back to his birthplace in rural Shikoku to confront his own familial and literary past, in this case in particular the life and death of his own father. <\/p>\n

Here’s the announcement:<\/p>\n

  • Kenzabur?? ?e, recipient of the 1994 Nobel Prize in Literature,
    \nwill return to the University of Chicago to deliver this
    \nyear?s Tetsuo Najita Distinguished Lecture. ?e?s talk, ?A
    \nNovelist Re-Reads ?Kaitokud??,???? will take place on Thursday,
    \nMarch 4 at 4:00 p.m. in the International House Assembly Hall.
    \n ?e will speak in Japanese, with English translation provided
    \nby Norma Field, Robert S. Ingersoll Distinguished Service
    \nProfessor in Japanese Studies. <\/p>\n

    Born in 1935 in rural Shikoku, ?e is one of modern Japan?s
    \nmost respected novelists and public intellectuals. He began
    \npublishing fiction while still a university student and in
    \n1958 was awarded the Akutagawa Prize, Japan?s most prestigious
    \nliterary award. Since, he has published many celebrated
    \nnovels and stories, including A Personal Matter (1964), The
    \nSilent Cry (1967), Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness (1969), The
    \nPinch Runner Memorandum (1976), and Somersault (1999). His
    \nmost recent novel, Suishi (Death by Drowning), was published
    \nin Japan to great acclaim in late 2009. His works have been
    \ntranslated into many languages, and in 1994 he became the
    \nsecond Japanese writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.<\/p>\n

    In addition to his fiction, ?e has throughout his career
    \nprovided a model for the engaged intellectual. He has written
    \nwidely on the dangers of nuclear proliferation, on Japan?s
    \nhistory of military aggression, and in defense of Article 9,
    \nthe peace clause of Japan?s postwar constitution. Recently,
    \n?e successfully defended himself in a highly publicized libel
    \ncase brought against him by the families of two Japanese
    \nwartime military officers who claimed that ?e?s 1970 book
    \nOkinawa Notes had exaggerated the role of the military in mass
    \ncivilian suicides in Okinawa during the closing months of
    \nWorld War Two, with the judges in the case declaring that his
    \nbook had accurately depicted the events in question. <\/p>\n

    ?e previously visited the University of Chicago as a visiting
    \nscholar in the 1980s and the 1990s. During those earlier
    \nvisits, he became acquainted with Tetsuo Najita, Robert S.
    \nIngersoll Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of History
    \nand of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, and ?e has
    \nwritten recently about the impact that Najita?s writings have
    \nhad on his own work. In his lecture, ?e will discuss the
    \ncontemporary relevance of Najita?s approach to intellectual
    \nhistory, including Najita?s Visions of Virtue in Tokugawa
    \nJapan: The Kaitokud?? Merchant Academy of Osaka (1997), a
    \nlandmark study of the rise of an independent school of
    \neconomic and moral philosophy in eighteenth-century Japan. <\/p>\n

    The Tetsuo Najita Distinguished Lecture series was launched in
    \n2007 by the University of Chicago Committee on Japanese
    \nStudies at the Center for East Asian Studies to honor the
    \nlegacy of Najita?s contribution to the university during his
    \nlong career.<\/p>\n

    ?e?s lecture is free and open to the public. It is sponsored
    \nby the Committee on Japanese Studies of the Center for East
    \nAsian Studies. <\/li>\n