Learn about the Interdisciplinary Master of Arts in East Asian Studies.

J. Thomas Rimer

Professor Emeritus of Japanese Literature,
Theatre, and Art

702 Old Engineering Hall
Fax: 412-624-3458
rimer@pitt.edu

Joint appointments in:

Department of History of Art and Architecture
Department of Theatre Arts

I came to Japanese studies in what would be these days a rather usual way. I had been an English major in college back in the 1950s and had had no contact with the Far East at all until I was drafted into the Army after the Korean War and sent to Sapporo in Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan. Talk about extended culture shock – and I assure you that I remain as fascinated, and surprised, by Japan now as I was fifty years ago. Because I lived and worked there, I began to pursue the same interests I had back at home – I loved music and the theatre, and literature as well. It was only after what might be called this “practical exposure” that I decided to go to graduate school and actually take up the formal study of Japanese culture. It was a very exciting surprise to discover the high quality of artistic and cultural life in Japan, which I learned to appreciate even more as I learned the language and studied literature and history, and it has been a pleasure for me to explore those avenues of understanding for several decades now.

I’ve published a good deal on a variety of topics, and now I’m working with a colleague to put together an anthology of modern Japanese literature, the first volume of which should appear next year from Columbia University Press. I’m also working on a biography on one of Japanese’s most creative twentieth-century stage directors, Senda Koreya. So much to do and so little time!

Education

PhD in Philosophy (Japanese Literature), 1971, Columbia University, New York

Thesis: Kishida Kunio and the Modern Japanese Theatre

Recent Publications

(with Stephen Addiss and Gerald Groemer) Traditional Japanese Arts and Culture: An Illustrated Sourcebook, Univeristy of Hawai'i Press, 2006

(with Van C. Gessel) The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature, Columbia University Press, 2005.

A translation of the play The Emperor of La Mancha’s Clothes, by Yokouchi Kensuke. Included in the Japan Playwright’s Association, ed. Half a Century of Japanese Theatre, Vol. III. Tokyo: Kinokuniya, 2001.

(with Marlene J. Mayo) War, Occupation, and Creativity: Japan and East Asia 1920-1960, Universityof Hawaii Press, 2001.

Japan Editor and contributor for Peter France, ed., The Oxford Guide to Literature in Translation, Oxford University Press, 2000.

A Reader’s Guide to Japanese Literature (Revision), Kodansha International, 1999.

Translation of Senda Akihiko, Voyage of Modern Japanese Theatre, translator, University of Hawaii Press, 1997.

(with Jonathan Chaves) Poems to Sing: The Wakan Rôeishû. Columbia University Press, 1997.

Nara Encounters, Weatherhill, NY, 1997. (with Keiko McDonald)

Editor, The Blue-Eyed Tarôkaja . Columbia Univ. Press, 1996.

Editor, Kyoto Encounters, Weatherhill, NY, 1995.

War, Occupation, and Creativity: Japan and East Asia 1920-1960

Poems to Sing

Kyoto Encounters

Awards

Recipient of the Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award, University of Pittsburgh, 1999.

Poems to Sing: The Wakan Rôeishû was awarded The Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature, a yearly translation prize administered by the Donald Keene Center of Columbia University, 1998.

Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, from the Consul General of Japan, December 1997.

J. Thomas Rimer

Professor Emeritus of Japanese Literature, Theatre, and Art

Professor Emeritus of Japanese Literature,
Theatre, and Art