The Play's the Thing: But Why Kokaji and Why Hashitomi?

Thomas Hare
Comparative Literature in the Department of East Asian Studies, Princeton University
Wednesday, 26 April 2023
11:30 am–12:00 pm

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Abstract: The modern repertory of Noh drama comprises some 250-odd plays and performance pieces. The choice of which plays among this large body would be best for an intermedia project consumed significant effort on the part of the creators of the site. Although I was not privy to that process in its entirety, I will talk about the two plays that were chosen, and how they represent the repertory overall.

About the presenter: Tom Hare is Professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University. He has translated the writings of Zeami on training and performance as  Zeami, Performance Notes (Columbia University Press, 2008) and written on ancient Egyptian semiotics and systems of representation in ReMembering Osiris (Stanford University Press, 1999). Current projects include a book on portraiture and, in collaboration, a handbook on Noh drama for English readers. His most recent publications include translations from eighteenth century jōruri ballads (in A Kamigata Anthology, Literature from Japan’s Metropolitan Centers, University of Hawaii Press, 2000) and a critical translation of the opening of The Great Hymn to Aten (Göttinger Miszellen, 261).