About Jingyi Li

Hello! My research focuses on Japanese cultural and literary history. I am also interested in popular culture, intellectual history, and literature. My dissertation project explores the identities of the literati groups in the nineteenth century.

Dr. Jingyi Li is a cultural historian of nineteenth-century Japan. She researches about early modern Japan, literati, and commercial publishing.

NBN Episodes hosted by Jingyi:

Yanagawa Seigan and Kōran, "The Same Moon Shines on All: The Lives and Selected Poems of Yanagawa Seigan and Kōran" (Columbia UP, 2024)

July 21, 2024

The Same Moon Shines on All

Yanagawa Seigan and Kōran
Hosted by Jingyi Li

Yanagawa Seigan (1789–1858) and his wife Kōran (1804–79) were two of the great poets of nineteenth-century Japan. They practiced the art of traditiona…

Laura Moretti and Satō Yukiko, "Graphic Narratives from Early Modern Japan: The World of Kusazōshi" (Brill, 2024)

July 19, 2024

Graphic Narratives from Early Modern Japan

Laura Moretti and Satō Yukiko
Hosted by Jingyi Li

Part of a formidable publishing industry, cheap yet eye-catching graphic narratives consistently charmed early modern Japanese readers for around two …

Anri Yasuda, "Beauty Matters: Modern Japanese Literature and the Question of Aesthetics, 1890-1930" (Columbia UP, 2024)

July 12, 2024

Beauty Matters

Anri Yasuda
Hosted by Jingyi Li

The notion of beauty is inherently elusive: aesthetic judgments are at once subjective and felt to be universally valid. In Beauty Matters: Modern Jap…

Wendy Matsumura, "Waiting for the Cool Moon: Anti-Imperialist Struggles in the Heart of Japan's Empire" (Duke UP, 2024)

July 11, 2024

Waiting for the Cool Moon

Wendy Matsumura
Hosted by Jingyi Li

In Waiting for the Cool Moon: Anti-Imperialist Struggles in the Heart of Japan's Empire (Duke UP, 2024) Wendy Matsumura interrogates the erasure of c…

Kristine Ohkubo and Kanariya Eiraku, "Talking About Rakugo 1: The Japanese Art of Storytelling" (2022)

May 7, 2024

Talking About Rakugo 1: The Japanese Art of Storytelling

Kristine Ohkubo and Kanariya Eiraku
Hosted by Jingyi Li

Rakugo is a live performance art that has penetrated the borders of Japan and continues to gain popularity overseas. The rakugo stage once dominated b…

Hiromi Ito, "Tree Spirits Grass Spirits" (Nightboat Books, 2023)

April 28, 2024

Tree Spirits Grass Spirits

Hiromi Ito
Hosted by Jingyi Li

A collected series of intertwined poetic essays written by acclaimed Japanese poet Hiromi Ito--part nature writing, part travelogue, part existential …

Thomas Lockley, "A Gentleman from Japan: The Untold Story of an Incredible Journey from Asia to Queen Elizabeth’s Court" (Hanover Square Press, 2024)

March 30, 2024

A Gentleman from Japan

Thomas Lockley
Hosted by Jingyi Li

On November 12, 1588, five young Asian men—led by a twenty-one-year-old called Christopher—traveled up the River Thames to meet Queen Elizabeth I. Chr…

Thomas D. Conlan, "Kings in All But Name: The Lost History of Ouchi Rule in Japan, 1350-1569" (Oxford UP, 2024)

March 17, 2024

Kings in All But Name

Thomas D. Conlan
Hosted by Jingyi Li

In the sixteenth century, members of the Ouchi family were kings in all but name in much of Japan. Immensely wealthy, they controlled sea lanes stretc…

Amanda Kennell, "Alice in Japanese Wonderlands: Translation, Adaptation, Mediation" (U Hawaii Press, 2023)

January 4, 2024

Alice in Japanese Wonderlands

Amanda Kennell
Hosted by Jingyi Li

Since the first translations of Lewis Carroll’s Alice books appeared in Japan in 1899, Alice has found her way into nearly every facet of Japanese lif…

Matthieu Felt, "Meanings of Antiquity: Myth Interpretation in Premodern Japan" (Harvard UP, 2023)

December 29, 2023

Meanings of Antiquity

Matthieu Felt
Hosted by Jingyi Li

Meanings of Antiquity: Myth Interpretation in Premodern Japan (Harvard UP, 2023) is the first dedicated study of how the oldest Japanese myths, record…

Olga V. Solovieva, "The Russian Kurosawa: Transnational Cinema, Or the Art of Speaking Differently" (Oxford UP. 2023)

December 22, 2023

The Russian Kurosawa

Olga V. Solovieva
Hosted by Jingyi Li

Olga V. Solovieva's book The Russian Kurosawa: Transnational Cinema, Or the Art of Speaking Differently (Oxford UP. 2023) offers a new historical pers…

Harry Harootunian, "Archaism and Actuality: Japan and the Global Fascist Imaginary" (Duke UP, 2023)

November 19, 2023

Archaism and Actuality

Harry Harootunian
Hosted by Jingyi Li

In Archaism and Actuality: Japan and the Global Fascist Imaginary (Duke UP, 2023) eminent Marxist historian Harry Harootunian explores the formation o…

David C. Atherton, "Writing Violence: The Politics of Form in Early Modern Japanese Literature" (Columbia UP, 2023)

October 23, 2023

Writing Violence

David C. Atherton
Hosted by Jingyi Li
Listen:

Edo-period Japan was a golden age for commercial literature. A host of new narrative genres cast their gaze across the social landscape, probed the re…

Satsuki Takahashi, "Fukushima Futures: Survival Stories in a Repeatedly Ruined Seascape" (U Washington Press, 2023)

August 12, 2023

Fukushima Futures

Satsuki Takahashi
Hosted by Jingyi Li

Both before and after the 2011 "Triple Disaster" of earthquake, tidal wave, and consequent meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, anth…

Jae DiBello Takeuchi, "Language Ideologies and L2 Speaker Legitimacy: Native Speaker Bias in Japan" (Mulitlingual Matters, 2023)

August 1, 2023

Language Ideologies and L2 Speaker Legitimacy

Jae DiBello Takeuchi
Hosted by Jingyi Li
Listen:

Jae DiBello Takeuchi's Language Ideologies and L2 Speaker Legitimacy: Native Speaker Bias in Japan (Mulitlingual Matters, 2023) examines dilemmas face…

Matthew Mewhinney, "Form and Feeling in Japanese Literati Culture" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)

April 10, 2023

Form and Feeling in Japanese Literati Culture

Matthew Mewhinney
Hosted by Jingyi Li

Matthew Mewhinney's Form and Feeling in Japanese Literati Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) explores how two early modern and two modern Japanese wri…

Leslie Bow, "Racist Love: Asian Abstraction and the Pleasures of Fantasy" (Duke UP, 2022)

February 8, 2023

Racist Love

Leslie Bow
Hosted by Jingyi Li

In Racist Love: Asian Abstraction and the Pleasures of Fantasy (Duke UP, 2022), Leslie Bow traces the ways in which Asian Americans become objects of …

Robert O'Mochain and Yuki Ueno, "Sexual Abuse and Education in Japan: In the (Inter)National Shadows" (Routledge, 2022)

February 1, 2023

Sexual Abuse and Education in Japan

Robert O'Mochain and Yuki Ueno
Hosted by Jingyi Li

Bringing together two voices, practice and theory, in a collaboration that emerges from lived experience and structured reflection upon that experienc…

Jonathan Dil, "Haruki Murakami and the Search for Self-Therapy: Stories from the Second Basement" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

December 24, 2022

Haruki Murakami and the Search for Self-Therapy

Jonathan Dil
Hosted by Jingyi Li

Haruki Murakami, a global literary phenomenon, has said that he started writing fiction as a means of self-therapy. What he has not discussed as much …

Stevie Suan, "Anime's Identity: Performativity and Form Beyond Japan" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)

December 23, 2022

Anime's Identity

Stevie Suan
Hosted by Jingyi Li

A formal approach to anime rethinks globalization and transnationality under neoliberalism Anime has become synonymous with Japanese culture, but its …

Wei Yu Wayne Tan, "Blind in Early Modern Japan: Disability, Medicine, and Identity" (U Michigan Press, 2022)

November 29, 2022

Blind in Early Modern Japan

Wei Yu Wayne Tan
Hosted by Jingyi Li

While the loss of sight—whether in early modern Japan or now—may be understood as a disability, blind people in the Tokugawa period (1600–1868) could …

Johanna O. Zulueta, "Okinawan Women's Stories of Migration: From War Brides to Issei" (Routledge, 2022)

September 30, 2022

Okinawan Women's Stories of Migration

Johanna O. Zulueta
Hosted by Jingyi Li

The phenomenon of “war brides” from Japan moving to the West has been quite widely discussed, but this book tells the stories of women whose lives fol…

Morgan Pitelka and Reiko Tanimura, "Letters from Japan's Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries" (IEAS, 2021)

September 7, 2022

Letters from Japan's Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

Morgan Pitelka and Reiko Tanimura
Hosted by Jingyi Li

Cultural historians Morgan Pitelka and Reiko Tanimura partner with one of Japan’s premier experts in calligraphy and letter writing, Takashi Masuda, t…

Charo B. D'Etcheverry, "Celebrating Sorrow: Medieval Tributes to the Tale of Sagoromo" (Cornell UP, 2022)

September 6, 2022

Celebrating Sorrow

Charo B. D'Etcheverry
Hosted by Jingyi Li

Celebrating Sorrow: Medieval Tributes to the Tale of Sagoromo (Cornell UP, 2022) explores the medieval Japanese fascination with grief in tributes to …