Ep. 77: Dennis Washburn and 'The Tale of Genji'

"People recognized that what’s being depicted here is sometimes despicable or deplorable but at the same time alluring, extraordinarily artistic and extraordinarily revealing about life and human nature. A lot of art is about a lot of very unpleasant stuff and you can’t cancel it because of that. You can’t move away or avert your eyes because it’s not morally upright."

'The Tale of Genji' has fascinated readers around the world for a thousand years. The female writer Murasaki Shikibu, born into the middle ranks of the aristocracy during the Heian period (794–1185 CE), wrote The Tale of Genji―widely considered the world’s first novel―during the early years of the eleventh century. Dennis Washburn, Professor at Dartmouth College, is here to explore the great work with us. Washburn, who spent decades on his masterful translation that the Washington Post called "fluid, elegant" makes a case for why we in the modern world should read this great work, or at least portions. The conversation also explores some themes that come up often on university campuses and beyond-- what do we do with works of art that make us uncomfortable? What do we do with Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's favorite director, for example? How does Washburn himself teach college students rape scenes right out of Genji? The convenient thing to do is ignore and gloss over the offending portions or not teach the work at all. But Professor Washburn, passionate professor and probing scholar, makes an eloquent case for not cancelling art that disturbs us, but instead confronting it fresh each time we encounter it. 

Dennis Washburn is the Burlington northern Foundation professor of Asian studies at Dartmouth College and Associate Dean of the Faculty. He holds a Ph.D. in Japanese Language and Literature from Yale University and has authored and edited studies on a range of literary and cultural topics. These include: The Dilemma of the Modern in Japanese Fiction; Translating Mount Fuji: Modern Japanese Fiction and the Ethics of Identity; and The Affect of Difference: Representations of Race in East Asian Empire. In addition to his scholarly publications, he has translated several works of Japanese fiction, including Yokomitsu Riichi’s Shanghai, Tsushima Tsushima Tuko’s Laughing Wolf, and Mizukami Tsutomu’s The Temple of the Wild Geese, for which he was awarded the US-Japan Friendship Commission Prize. In 2004 he was awarded the Japan Foreign Minister’s citation for promoting cross-cultural understanding.

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