Edward Kamens

Sumitomo Professor of Japanese Studies

B.A., Yale University, 1974
Ph.D., Yale University, 1982

Email
Tel: 203-432-2862
Office: 310 HGS
CV

Department Chair

I have been a member of EALL faculty since 1986; I taught previously at U. of Chicago, UCLA, and U. of Washington.  At Yale I have served as EALL’s Director of Undergraduate Studies, Director of Graduate Studies, and Chair; I have also been the Associate Master and Master of Saybrook College. My teaching covers Japanese literature from the earliest periods into the 19th century; my research interests focus primarily on the poetry and prose genres of the Nara, Heian and Kamakura periods.  Major publications include Utamakura, Allusion and Intertextuality in Traditional Japanese Poetry (1997); The Buddhist Poetry of the Great Kamo Priestess: Daisaiin Senshi and Hosshin wakashū (1990); and The Three Jewels: A Study and Translation of Minamoto Tamenori’s Sanboe (1988); Heian Japan, Centers and Peripheries, ed. with Mikael Adolphson and Stacie Matsumoto (2007); and articles in Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies and Journal of Japanese Studies. My current projects examine the relationship between traditional poetry (waka) and material culture.