“Uptown and Downtown in Early Modern Japanese Urban Literature: The Making of a Three-Volume Anthology,” Center for Japanese Studies, University of California Berkeley, February 18, 2022. Online Webinar.

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“Promoting Japanese Literature in the English-Speaking World: Leadership of Columbia University and Donald Keene Center,” an acceptance speech at the award ceremony for Japan-US Friendship Commission Translation Awards and Lindsey and Masao Miyoshi Translation Prizes, March 2019.

 

“Gender, Class, and Repression in Male Homoerotic Narratives of the Early Edo Period in Japan,” a lecture, Ohio State University, October 20, 2017.

 

“Introduction to an Anthology in English of Early Modern Urban Literature,” a discussion on Sumie Jones and Charles Inouye eds., A Tokyo Anthology: Literature from Japan’s Modern Metropolis, 1850-1920, for a Book Workshop, the East Asian Studies Center, Indiana University, September 13, 2017.

 

“Inventing Modernity Downtown: The Role of Tokyoite Masses in the Development of Urban Literature during the Meiji Period,” a lecture, Purdue University, March 27, 2017.

 

“Globalism for Individuals: Study Abroad and Career Paths,” Jiyuu Gakuen College, March 17, 2016.

“Globalization and Education in the U.S. and Japan,” a lecture for workshop of teachers of Saitama Prefecture high schools appointed as recipients by Japanese Government of its Globalization Program grants. Rikkyo Niiza High School, June 26, 2014.

 

“Channeling Tradition into New Waters: Travel Beyond the Borders in Edo and Meiji Literatures,” a lecture in Japanese at symposium in memory of Herbert Plutchow, Josai International University, Tokyo, June 2012.

 

“Directing an International Collaborative Project,” a presentation for the Annual Meeting of the Society for Advanced Study, Indiana University, November 2009.

 

“Women’s Dandyism and the Formation of Popular Culture in Japan,” a joint seminar with Kenji Watanabe, Institute for Advanced Study, Indiana University, April 2008.

 

“Lying About Flying and the Invention of Science Fiction in Japan,” a lecture, Indiana University, October 2007.

 

“Shunga Looks Back: Performance and Spectatorship in Edo Art,” a lecture, the University of California, Los Angeles, May 2004.

 

“Dialogues in Edo Literature,” a lecture, Atomi Gakuin University, Saitama, Japan, July 2002.

 

“Overtext: A Semiological Approach to Early Modern Japanese Literature,” a lecture in Japanese for a faculty seminar on theory, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, July 2002.

 

“To Whom Male Love Manuals Spoke?,” for a joint colloquium with Timon Screech, “Consuming Male Love:  Readership, Spectatorship, and the Market of Male Homoerotic Literature and Arts in Early Modern Japan,” Indiana University, April 2002.

 

“Sexual Fiction and Problems of Translation,” Institute for Advanced Study’, Indiana University, September 20, 2001.

 

"Eroticism of Waka Poetry from the Heian Period to the Present," two short lectures between poetry reading and musical performance, Japan Society, New York, June 2001.

 

“Obsessed with Lines: An Overview of Line and Its Use in Japanese Arts,” an opening lecture in the series, “Line in Japanese Arts,” College Women’s Association of Japan, Tokyo, February 2001.

 

“Heian Period History and Culture” and “The Edo Period History and Culture,” two lectures for the workshop for high school teachers, “Teaching East Asian Literature in High School,” Indiana University, July 2000.

 

“Narrating Crime in Late Edo Arts,” Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, Harvard University, March 2000.

 

“Toward a History of East Asian Literature,” a keynote paper for conference on “Planning an East Asian Literary History,” sponsored by the East Asian Comparative Literature Association and Korean Comparative Literature Association, Seoul, October 1999.

 

“The Discourse of Literary History,” remarks for the meeting of East Asian Comparative Literature Association on its plans for a history of East Asian literature, sponsored by the Japanese Comparative Literature Association in conjunction with its annual meeting, Fukuoka, June 1999.

 

“The Power of Reading: Women and the Postmodern in 18th-Century Literature,” a public lecture, Sookmyung Women’s University, Seoul, June 1999.

 

“Postmodernity and 18th-Century East Asian Literature,” a public lecture, Sangkyunkwan University, Seoul, June 1999.

 

“Overtext: toward a Theory of Postmodernity in Early Modern Literature,” an opening lecture for the conference, ”The Presence of Theory: Implications of Cultural Studies,” annual conference of the Korean Association of Theory and Criticism, Seoul, June 1999.

 

“American Culture Encounters Japan: College Education and Contemporary Culture,” a public lecture sponsored by Center for American Studies, University of Saitama, December 1998.

 

“Powerful Concubines and Authoritative Virgins: Women in Edo Culture,” International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto, January 1998.

 

“Japanese Culture and Sexual Expression--the Case of Sawada Natari,” Colloquium on “Japanese Culture and Sexual Expression,” the University of Tokyo, December 1997.

 

“Cultural Studies and Its Implications for the Future of Comparative Literature,” Colloquium of the Tokyo Division of Japanese Comparative Literature Association, Tokyo, April 1996.

 

“Representation vs. Reflection: Aesthetic and Semiological Structures in the Arts,” Waseda University, Tokyo, April 1996.

 

“Women and the Discovery of the Ordinary in Edo City Culture,” Josai University, Tokyo, April 1996.

 

“Performing the Ordinary: The Role of Women in Edo Culture,” Ohio State University, February 1996.

 

“Realizing Women in the Fantastic: Ukiyoe, Kabuki, and Gesaku,” as part of a joint lecture series, Washington University and University of Missouri, St. Louis, October 1995.

 

“Yoshiwara and Kabuki: A Guide to Hot Spots in Edo,” Indiana University Art Museum, September 1995.

 

“Yellow Cover Books and Pleasure Hunting in Edo,” an introduction to the Readers Theatre performance of Santō Kyōden’s Playboy, Grilled Edo Style (1785), translated by Sumie Jones, Indiana University Art Museum, September 1995.

 

“City Culture and City Space in Early Modern Japan,” Gettysburg College, April 1995.

 

“Reflection and Representation: A Semiological Approach to the Body in the Arts,” the University of Tokyo, June 1994.

 

“Reading the Body in 18th and 19th century European and Japanese Art,” Swarthmore College, March 1994.

 

“Staging the Erotic: Kabuki and the Yoshiwara in the Pictorial Arts of the Edo Period, The Cleveland Museum of Art, February 1994.

 

“Aestheticizing the Ugly: Taste and Style in Late Edo Arts,” Japan Society Gallery, New York, October 1993.

 

“The Story in the Picture: Japanese Tales and the Chester Beatty Collection,” a series of three lectures, Indianapolis Museum of Art, December 1992.

 

“Seeing Us as Foreigners,” and “Protocol Revisited,” two lectures for Executive Education Program, School of Business, Indiana University, November 1992.

 

“Images of Americans in Japanese Art and Literature Since the 19th Century,” “Mini University” summer series, Indiana University, June 1992.

 

"Breaking the Disciplinary Boundaries: Collaborative Research in Early Modern Japanese Studies," Early Modern Japan Network special workshop, Association for Asian Studies, Washington D.C. April 1992.

 

"A Battle between the Written and the Spoken: Parodic Styles in Eighteenth-Century Japanese Literature," American Society for Eighteen Century Studies, Seattle, March 1992.

 

“Post-War Images of America in Japanese Popular Culture,” Conference on “Teaching About Pearl Harbor: Challenging the Next Generation,” East Asian Studies Center, Indiana University, November 1991.

 

“Beauties and Monstrous Beauties: Taste and Style in Popular Arts in Early Modern Japan,” University of California, Berkeley, November 1991.

 

“The Ghastly and the Monstrous: The Aesthetics of Later Edo Culture,” Harvard University, October 1991.

 

“No Space Is Too Small for Love, Intrigue, and Murder: Nagaya Tenements in Edo Literature and Arts,” Wesleyan University, October 1991.

 

“Perception and Story-Telling,” and “Visual Images of Ourselves” Parts 1 and 2, Executive Education Seminar, School of Business, Indiana University, September 1991.

 

“The Myth of Ideal Beauties: Edo Period Courtesans and Women of the 90's,” Japan America Society of Chicago, May 1991.

 

“The Body in Japanese and Western Painting and Literature,” the University of Toronto and the Royal Ontario Museum, April 1991.

 

"Reading Space: Rural and Urban Dwellings in Edo-Period Poetry and Fiction" with Toru Haga, East Asian Colloquium, Indiana University, Bloomington, April 1991.

 

“The Last Crisis of Comparative Literature,” Dōshisha Women's University, Kyoto, January 1991.

 

“On the 'Shock of Encountering the Other',” Nippon University, Mishima, January 1991.

 

“Images of the Body in Japanese and Western Cultures,” State University of New York at Binghamton, October 1988.

 

“Dealing with the Japanese: Paradigms of Perception and Communication,” Executive Development Seminar, Indiana University School of Business,

September 1988.

 

“How to Get Lost in Tokyo: a Semiotician's Guide,” East Asian Summer Language Institute, Indiana University, August 1988.

 

“Comparative Literature and East Asian Studies,” a brief talk for a video program prepared for Indiana University's “Research Expo '88,” April 1988.

 

“The Politics of Tear-Drenched Sleeves: An Introduction to Courtly Life and Aesthetics in Ancient Japan,” Spelman College, Atlanta, November 1987.

 

"Women in Japanese Society," the Midwest Seminar on Teaching about Japan, Bloomington, July, 1987.

 

“The Reading of the Body: The Erotic Fiction of Hiraga Gennai and Sawada Natari,” the University of Chicago, June 1987.

 

“The Inept Narrator and the Smart Reader: The Semiotics of Eighteenth-Century Comic Fiction in Japan,” Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, March 1987.

 

“Representing Sexuality: the Body in Japanese and Western Painting and Literature,” University of Georgia, Athens, March 1987.

 

“Seeing and Reading: Eighteenth-Century Sexual Fiction East and West,” Washington University, St. Louis, January 1987.

 

“Women in Japanese Society of the 1980s,” Seminar on Teaching About Japan, Midwest Program for Teaching About Japan, Bloomington, June 1986, and July 1987.

 

“The Reading of Santō Kyōden's 'Books of Manners'--a Semiotic Approach,” University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, February 1986 (CHECK DATE).

 

"Manuals of Pleasure-hunting: Semiotic Analysis of 18th-century Japanese Fiction,” UIUC Japan Seminar, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, February 1986.

 

“The Phallus and the Secrecy of Satire: The Seclusive History of a Withered Dick by Hiraga Gennai,” Indiana University, Bloomington, September 1983.

 

“How to Begin a Journey Along the Tōkaidō: Some Problems of Jippensha Ikku's Preface to His comic Travel Series,” University of Washington, Seattle, April 1983.

 

“Life in Edo and Edo Aesthetics in Shikitei Sanba's Works,” Princeton University, March 1983.

 

“The Reading of Visual Narratives: 'Progresses' of William Hogarth and Kitao Masanobu,” Radcliffe College, November 1982.

 

“Gorky, Stanislavsky, Kurosawa: Modern Theatre and Versions of The Lower Depths, Woodrow Wilson Center, Smithsonian Institution, May 1982.

 

“Imitation, Invention, Innovation: a Cultural Profile of Japan,” Indiana Central University, March 1982.

 

“Masanobu Alias Kyoden: Literary Works of a Painter,” “Surimono Symposium,” Indiana University, March 16, 1980.

 

“Santō Kyōden: Text and Illustration,” Harvard University, March 9, 1979.

 

“Aesthetic Ideals of the Lower Classes in Tokugawa Japan,” Indiana University, February 1978.

 

「境界と男色」“Kyōkai to Nanshoku” [“Borders and Male Homoeroticism:  Saikaku’s Great Mirror of Male Love”], a keynote lecture for   conference, “Borders and Interactions in Japanese Culture,” Rikkyo University, Tokyo, October 2001.

 

「身体描写とプロポーション」“Shintai Byōsha to Puropōshon: Ukiyoe no Kigōgaku” [“Proportion and the Representation of the Body: the Semiotics of Ukiyoe Prints”], a seminar lecture, Faculty of Letters, Waseda University, July 1999.

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「江戸春本の読みとジェンダー」“Edo Shunpon no Yomi to Jendā” [“Gender and the Reading of Sexual Literature”], seminar lecture, School of Literature, Rikkyo University, Tokyo, May 1999.

 

「民間芸術における性表現—アジア的普遍性はあるのか？」“Minkan Geijutsu ni Okeru Sei Hyōgen: Ajia-teki Fuhensei wa Aru no ka?” [“Sexual Expression in Popular Arts: Can We Speak of a Common Asianness?”], a public lecture, Rikkyo University, January 1999.

 

「江戸戯作のポストモダン」“Edo Gesaku no ‘Posutomodan’” [“The ‘Postmodern’ and Gesaku during the Edo Period”], a keynote lecture, Annual Conference on Japanese Literature, Rikkyo University, July 1998.

 

「江戸文化に見る怪異と性のファンタジー」“Edo Bunka ni Miru Kaii to Sei no Fantajī” [“Fantasy of the Weird and the Sexual in Edo Culture”], International Studies Academic Lecture Series, Nihon University, Mishima, June 1998.

 

「幽霊と妖怪の江戸文学」“Yūrei to Yōkai no Edo Bungaku” [“Ghosts, Monsters, and Edo Literature”], IRCJS Forum series No. 106, Kyoto, April 1998.

 

「女らしさの東西—十八世紀以後」“Onnarashisa no Tōzai: Jūhasseiki Igo” [“Womanliness, East and West, since the 18th Century”], IRCJS, Kyoto, January 1998.

 

「オーバーテクスト—再話再読の江戸文化」“Overtext: Saiwa Saidoku no Edo Bunka” [“Overtext: Edo Culture as Retelling and Rereading,” a semi-annual public lecture of Waseda University Comparative Literature Association, Waseda University, Tokyo, November 1997.

 

「＜地おんな＞の登場：江戸の日本生活と女たち」, 国際日本文化研究センター共同研究：近代日本の女たち—その表象と自己表現, 1996年3月8日

 

「戯作における愛の対話」 “Dialogues of Love in Gesaku Fiction," Conference on "Love: Its Expression in Japanese Art and Literature," in celebration of 20th year of the Japan Foundation, Tokyo, December 1992.

 

「日本文化と向き合うアメリカ：憧憬型から参加型へ」, Saitama University, December 14, 1992

 

「日本人論という理論」“Nihonjinron to Yū Riron” [“Theorizing the Self: Nihonjinron since the 17th Century”], East Asian Summer Language Institute, Indiana University, July 1991.

 

「日本女性の国際化」“Nihon Josei no ‘Kokusaika’” [“ ‘Internationalization’ and Japanese Women”], Alumni Association, Yamanashi Eiwa Women's College, Kōfu, January 1991.

 

「戯作の中の読者」“Gesaku no Naka no Dokusha“ [“The Reader Within the Text”], University of Tokyo, December 1990.

 

「比較文学の楽しみ」“Hikaku Bungaku no Tanoshimi “ [“The Pleasure of Comparative Literary Studies”],  Morioka University, November 1990.

 

「外から見る日本文化」“Soto kara Miru Nihon Bunka” [“Japanese Culture Seen from the Outside”], Atomi Gakuen University, Tokyo, October 1990.

 

「ロンドン子と江戸っ子—十八世紀比較文化」“Rondonko to Edokko: Jyūhasseiki Hikaku Bunka ” [“The Londoner and the Edoite: a Comparative Cultural View of the Eighteenth Century,” a lecture for the liberal arts course, “Japan in the World,” University of Tokyo, June 1990.

 

「文化と批評における記号としての女性」“Bunka to Hihyō ni okeru Kigō to shite no Josei ” [“Woman as Sign in Culture and  Criticism”], Kōnan University, Kobe, June 1990.

 

「アメリカの比較文学はどこへ行くのか」“Amerika no Hikaku Bungaku wa Doko e Iku no ka ” [“Breaking the Boundaries: The Present and the Future of Comparative Literature in the U.S.”], a faculty colloquium, Tokyo Women's Christian University, December 1989.

 

「アメリカにおける日本研究の現状」“Amerika ni okeru Nihon Kenkyū no Genjō” “[New Trends in Japanese Studies in the  U.S.”], University of Nagoya, December 1989.

 

「戯作の作者、作者の戯作」“Gesaku no Sakusha, Sakusha no Gesaku ” [“Author in Fiction, Author's Fiction”], a keynote lecture for the Annual International Conference on Japanese Literature, National Institute of Japanese Literature, Tokyo, November 1989.

 

「江戸の本—作者、絵師、書肆、読者」“Edo no Hon: Sakusha, Eshi, Shoshi, Dokusha [Edo Books: Authors, Illustrators, Publishers, and Readers]” (in Japanese), East Asian Summer Language Institute, Indiana University, August 1986.