Please note: This lecture will be held in person in room 1010, Weiser Hall, and virtually on Zoom. The webinar is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Once you've registered, joining information will be sent to your email. Register for the Zoom webinar at https://myumi.ch/W6ZPD.

The talk explores the life and work of popular writer Yoshiya Nobuko (1896–1973), known for her serialized fiction, modern fashion, and lifelong relationship with a same-sex partner. The talk considers her work through the lens of the shōjo (girl) as a term of genre, identity, and perspective on 20th-century Japan.

Sarah Frederick teaches Japanese literature and cinema at Boston University’s Department of World Languages and Literatures, of which she is currently associate chair. She is the author of Turning Pages: Reading and Writing Women’s Magazines in Interwar Japan (University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2006), and articles in positions: East Asian Cultures Critique, US Japan Women’s Journal, and Japan Forum. She has also published a translation of Yoshiya Nobuko’s short story Yellow Rose (Expanded editions, 2016). She has also written on the travel writings of Yoshiya Nobuko, Isabella Bird, and Natsume Sōseki, including a GIS-aided map of Natsume Sōseki’s trips to Kyoto.

Accommodation: If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact us at cjsevents@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.