Yoshitaka Yamamoto

Yoshitaka Yamamoto joins the FAS as Assistant Professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures. He is a scholar of premodern (pre-1900) Japanese literature, with a focus on Sinitic (classical Chinese) poetry and prose by seventeenth- to nineteenth-century Japanese-speaking authors of the Edo and Meiji periods. He is interested in examining the wide-ranging impacts of Sinitic texts and related artistic practices on Japanese society and culture in a transnational, comparative, and interdisciplinary context, with the aim of understanding how long-standing traditions can catalyze change and innovation while also fostering a sense of community and continuity. In 2021, he published a 440-page book in Japanese, titled Shibun to keisei: bakufu jushin no jūhasseiki [Sinitic Poetry, Prose, and Ordering the World: The Eighteenth Century through the Eyes of Shogunal Confucian Scholars], from the University of Nagoya Press. The book explored the various ways in which Japanese authors of Sinitic texts emulated earlier Japanese and Chinese literary models to chart their own paths through life’s tribulations and was awarded the Classical Japanese Literary Studies Prize. He has published approximately thirty articles and book chapters in Japanese and English. Currently, he is working on two book projects in English: one on the process of self-fashioning by eighteenth-century Japanese authors of Sinitic texts and another on the multifaceted functions of Sinitic writing in nineteenth-century Japanese calligraphy and painting albums. He endeavors to engage with authentic historical materials as much as possible and enjoys researching premodern Japanese manuscripts and printed books. Before coming to Yale, he taught and conducted research as a tenured faculty member at Osaka University, the National Institute of Japanese Literature, and SOKENDAI, and held visiting associate professorships at Yale University and the University of California, Berkeley, as well as a visiting researcher position at Heidelberg University in Germany. He earned an AB in Literature from Harvard College, and an MA and a PhD in Comparative Literature and Culture from the University of Tokyo.