Join us for an online talk by Dr. Małgorzata K. Citko-DuPlantis (University of Tennessee, Knoxville), who will be discussing her book project on the Man’yōshū.
This talk considers Man’yōshū—Japan’s earliest anthology of vernacular poetry—as a continuously evolving and unstable discourse. The collection’s medieval life unfolded through a wide range of its manuscripts, commentaries, handbooks, poetic contests, private compilations, and oral teachings. These materials formed a layered and uneven network of transmission through which poets and scholars engaged, reorganized, and reimagined the anthology. In this world of partial access and competing lineages, Man’yōshū functioned as a flexible body of knowledge whose boundaries were constantly shifting.
Dr. Citko-DuPlantis traces how these medieval modes of reading and reinterpretation generated a vibrant culture of instability, one in which new meanings emerged through allusion, rearrangement, and commentary. Rather than diminishing the anthology’s authority, this instability enabled its continual renewal and made it available to a wide array of intellectual and creative projects. The lecture also considers how later eras—particularly in modern Japan—drew on this long-standing pattern of reuse and recontextualization.
This talk is free and open to the public. It is co-sponsored by the Japan Foundation Toronto.
Date & Time:
Thursday, January 15, 2026 | 4:00pm – 5:30pm PT
Location:
Online via Zoom
Speaker
Małgorzata K. Citko-DuPlantis is a scholar of premodern Japanese literature whose work brings new attention to the ways classical texts are studied, transmitted, and repurposed across time. An Assistant Professor of Japanese Literature and Culture at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, she has published in leading journals including Monumenta Nipponica, Journal of Japanese Studies, and Japanese Language and Literature. Her research on Man’yōshū’s reception has shaped both academic and public conversations, including her development of the framework “Man’yōshū as soft power.” A recipient of awards and fellowships from Japan Foundation, Fulbright, and MEXT, and an invited speaker at many international institutions, she bridges literary history, cultural politics, and global media studies.
