CJS Noon Lecture Series | Scripting Suicide in Japan
Kirsten Cather, Professor and Director of the Center for East Asian Studies (CEAS), University of Texas at Austin
Please note: This lecture will be held in person in room 555, Weiser Hall. It will not be live-streamed or recorded.
Japan is a nation saddled with centuries of accumulated stereotypes and loaded assumptions about suicide. Many pronouncements have been made about those who have died by their own hand, while little careful attention has been paid to the words of the dead themselves. In this book talk, Kirsten Cather explores far-ranging creations by famous 20th and 21st century Japanese writers and little-known amateurs alike – death poems, suicide notes, memorials, suicide maps and manuals, and works of literature, film, and manga. She invites the audience into a discussion of these difficult texts to consider how these words reach out to us to initiate a dialogue with the dead, one that can reveal why it matters to write into and from the void.
Kirsten Cather has been teaching Japanese literature, film, and culture in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin for the past twenty years. Her first book, The Art of Censorship in Postwar Japan (University of Hawai`i Press, 2012), analyzed Japan’s landmark obscenity ( waisetsu) trials, from the translation of D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover in the 1950s to an erotic manga in 2002. Her most recent book, Scripting Suicide in Japan (UC Press, 2024), considers how and why individuals write and read in the face and wake of suicide.
This lecture is made possible with the generous support of the U.S. Department of Education Title VI grant.
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.
Japan is a nation saddled with centuries of accumulated stereotypes and loaded assumptions about suicide. Many pronouncements have been made about those who have died by their own hand, while little careful attention has been paid to the words of the dead themselves. In this book talk, Kirsten Cather explores far-ranging creations by famous 20th and 21st century Japanese writers and little-known amateurs alike – death poems, suicide notes, memorials, suicide maps and manuals, and works of literature, film, and manga. She invites the audience into a discussion of these difficult texts to consider how these words reach out to us to initiate a dialogue with the dead, one that can reveal why it matters to write into and from the void.
Kirsten Cather has been teaching Japanese literature, film, and culture in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin for the past twenty years. Her first book, The Art of Censorship in Postwar Japan (University of Hawai`i Press, 2012), analyzed Japan’s landmark obscenity ( waisetsu) trials, from the translation of D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover in the 1950s to an erotic manga in 2002. Her most recent book, Scripting Suicide in Japan (UC Press, 2024), considers how and why individuals write and read in the face and wake of suicide.
This lecture is made possible with the generous support of the U.S. Department of Education Title VI grant.
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.
| Building: | Weiser Hall |
|---|---|
| Event Type: | Lecture / Discussion |
| Tags: | Asian Languages And Cultures, japan, Japanese Studies, Literature, Psychology |
| Source: | Happening @ Michigan from Center for Japanese Studies, International Institute, Asian Languages and Cultures |
