Sachi Schmidt-Hori
Associate Professor of Asian Societies Cultures and LanguagesAssociate Professor of Japanese Literature and Culture
Associate Professor of Japanese Literature and Culture
I am interested in investigating how gender, sexuality, corporeality, and power are represented and negotiated in pre-seventeenth-century Japanese narratives and illustrations. My first book, Tales of Idolized Boys: Male-Male Love in Medieval Japanese Narratives (University of Hawai`i Press, 2021) is on medieval chigo monogatari (Buddhist acolyte tales), which often depict romantic relationships between Buddhist priests and adolescent boys. These tales challenge a host of normative and moral standards we (academics, especially) internalize, including such ideas as "sexual orientation," "transgenerational sex," and "sexual agency."
I am also a co-founder of the Springboard Japan Project, a multi-purpose open-access forum for Japan Studies: Springboard Japan – Dartmouth-UCSD Japan Studies Digital Project
Department(s):
Asian Societies, Cultures, and Languages
Education:
M.A. University of Washington
PhD University of Washington
Selected Publications
Tales of Idolized Boys: Male-Male Love in Medieval Japanese Buddhist Narratives (Honolulu: The University of Hawai`i Press, 2021). https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/tales-of-idolized-boys-male-male-love-in-medieval-japanese-buddhist-narratives/
“The Erotic Family: Structures and Narratives of Milk Kinship in Premodern Japanese Tales.” The Journal of Asian Studies, 80(3), 663-681. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-asian-studies/article/erotic-family-structures-and-narratives-of-milk-kinship-in-premodern-japanese-tales/AA975FF6926858B4E78A3A2B9ABC5574.
“The Boy Who Lived: The Transfigurations of Chigo in the Medieval Japanese Short Story Ashibiki.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 75 no. 2 (December 2015), pp. 299–329. The Boy Who Lived: The Transfigurations of "Chigo" in the Medieval Japanese Short Story "Ashibiki" on JSTOR
“The New Lady-in-Waiting Is a Chigo: Sexual Fluidity and Dual Transvestism in a Medieval Acolyte Tale.” Japanese Language and Literature, vol. 43 no. 2 (October 2009), pp. 383–423. The New Lady-in-Waiting Is a Chigo: Sexual Fluidity and Dual Transvestism in a Medieval Buddhist Acolyte Tale on JSTOR
“Non-Binary Genders in the Genji, the New Chamberlain, and Beyond.” Book chapter for the Norton Critical Edition on The Tale of Genji (edited by Dennis Washburn, W. W. Norton, 2021). https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393933987
“Symbolic Death and Rebirth into Womanhood: An Analysis of Stepdaughter Narratives from Heian and Medieval Japan.” Japanese Language and Literature, vol. no. 2 (October 2020), pp. 448–475. https://jll.pitt.edu/ojs/JLL/article/view/94
“Yoshitsune and the Gendered Transformations of Japan’s Self-Image.” The Journal of Japanese Studies (forthcoming).