Reading the Tale of Genji: Its Picture-Scrolls, Texts and Romance

Richard Stanley-Baker taught at Hong Kong University from 1985-2005, and now teaches part-time in United International College, Zhuhai, PRC. He has taught at National Taiwan University (1980-85), The University of Tokyo (1995-96), at Princeton University (1999-2000), U.C. Berkeley and Stanford. His publications include a translation of Takahashi Sei'ichirô's Traditional Woodblock Prints of Japan (Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1972); major articles include eight in Y. Shimizu & C. Wheelwright ed., Japanese Ink Paintings, (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Art Museum, l976) and 'Japanese ink painting of the Muromachi Period', in Grove ed., The Dictionary of Art; 1996.Murakami Fuminobu is Associate Professor at the Department of Japanese Studies, School of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Hong Kong. He teaches Japanese language, literature, film and culture. He is author of Postmodern, Feminist and Postcolonial Currents in Contemporary Japanese Culture (Routledge: hardcover 2005; paperback 2009), Ideology and Narrative in Modern Japanese Literature (Van Gorcum, 1996). Jeremy Tambling is Professor of Literature at the University of Manchester, and before that, Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Hong Kong. He is author of several books, and two forthcoming: 'Allegory' in the 'New Critical Idiom' series (Routledge, 2009) and 'Dante in Purgatory: States of Affect' (Brepols 2010)), both of which relate to his interest in critical theory and medievalism east and west. His most recent book was 'Going Astray: Dickens and London' (Longman, 2008).

Six essays by international scholars addressing the Tale of Genji Scrolls and the Tale of Genji texts in the context of new critical theory relating to cultural studies, narrative painting, comparative literature and a global view of medieval romance. It links new critical theory with multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary interests.

Preface; A Note to the Reader; Introduction; PART I: Reading the Genji Scrolls; 1 Scripting the Moribund: The Genji Scrolls' Aesthetics of Decomposition; 2 The Narration of Tales, The Narration of Paintings; PART II: Reading the Genji Texts; 3 Displacements of Conquest, or Exile: The Tale of Genji, and Post-Cold War Learning; 4 Person, Honorifics and Tense in the Tale of Genji; PART III: Reading the Genji Romance; 5 'Kiritsubo': Genji, Spacing and Naming; 6 Genji and the Gardens of Medieval Romance; Appendix: A Chapter List of The Tale of Genji, with Lists of Attributed Teams; Bibliography of Japanese Sources; Index