Essays on Japan

Essays on Japan is a compilation of Professor Michael F. Marra’s essays written in the past ten years on the topics of Japanese literature, Japanese aesthetics, and the space between the two subjects. Marra is one of the leading scholars in the field of Japanese aesthetics and hermeneutics and has published extensively on medieval and early modern Japanese literature, thought, and the arts. This work will present the reader critical insight into the fields of Japanese aesthetics, literary hermeneutics, and literature, with essays on such texts and figures as Kuki Shūzō, The Tale of Genji, Motoori Norinaga, and Heidegger.

Michael F. Marra (1956-2011) ) was professor of Japanese literature, aesthetics, and hermeneutics at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has served on the faculties of Osaka University of Foreign Studies, the University of Tokyo, the University of Kyoto, and the University of Southern California and was chosen by the governor of Nara Prefecture as goodwill ambassador for the celebrations in 2010 of the 1,300th anniversary of the foundation of Nara as capital of the ancient Yamato state (710–2010).