LIBRARY NOTES
 
Donald Keene is considered one of the leading scholars of Japanese literature both in the United States and in Japan. He is the author of twenty-five books in English and thirty in Japanese, including many now-standard studies of Japanese literature and culture and translations of classical and modern Japanese works. These include a four-volume history of Japanese literature; a book of personal essays,
The Blue-Eyed Tarokaja; and most recently
Frog in the Well, a biography of Watanabe Kazan.
The first major Japanese intellectual to learn from the West as well as from his own tradition, Kazan was a famous artist, a Confucian scholar, a samurai, and a critic of the shogun government. Since his death in 1841, Kazan has continued to be widely esteemed as an artistic and ethical example in Japan. In this event, Dr. Keene will discuss Kazan's life and influence using slides and talk briefly about his own experience as a scholar in two different cultures.
In addition to his writing, Donald Keene served as Professor of Japanese at Columbia University from 1955 to 1992 and has been a visiting professor at six Japanese colleges and universities. He has also received numerous literary awards and honorary degrees from institutions in both countries. In 2002, the Japanese government named him a "Person of Cultural Merit," making him only the second non-Japanese citizen to receive this high distinction.
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