The organizing committee for the 2025 Saikaku-Bakin Symposium is pleased to issue a call for paper proposals on the theme “Popularization, Genre, and Translation in Edo-Period Narrative.” The two-day symposium will be held March 21–22, 2025, at Paris Cité University, France. The goal of the Saikaku-Bakin Symposium has been to foster conversation among scholars working on early modern Japanese narrative across the entire Edo period; presentations are not limited to the major figures of Ihara Saikaku or Kyokutei Bakin. Previously, the symposium was held at Rutgers University in 2019 and at the University of California, Davis, in 2023.

We seek presentations centered on Edo-period prose narrative that explore the ways in which Japanese authors of the early modern period attempted to make their writing available to new audiences through a wide array of rewriting processes. Presentations that examine the relationship and boundaries between prose genres and other narrative or non-narrative forms, including images and performance, are welcomed. Graduate students are also encouraged to submit proposals. Possible questions include, but are not limited to:

• What do we mean by terms like “popular literature” and “popularization”? Can these terms be applied productively to Edo-period literature?
• What role do forms of rewriting such as translation, adaptation, pastiche, parody, etc. play in Edo-period literature? How did writers of the Edo period experiment with different generic forms and ways of thinking about composition itself?
• Can early modern writers and their works inform our current efforts to bring literature to new audiences via translation and other strategies?

Paper proposals of approximately 300-400 words/characters in English or Japanese should be uploaded in PDF format through the submission portal at the 2025 Symposium website: https://sites.rutgers.edu/saikaku-bakin-symposium/ by 31 July, 2024. The languages of the symposium are English and Japanese, and presentations are primarily in-person with limited access for remote participation. Proposals will be reviewed, and notifications sent out by mid-August.

Venue and dates: Paris Cité University, 21–22 March, 2025

Deadline for paper proposals: 31 July, 2024

Please address questions to Prof. Daniel Struve: daniel.struve@u-paris.fr or Prof. Paul Schalow: schalow@rutgers.edu