J. Thomas Rimer

Last updated

J. Thomas Rimer (born 2 March 1933 [1] ) is an American scholar of Japanese literature and drama. He is a Professor Emeritus of Japanese Literature, Theatre, and Art at the University of Pittsburgh. [2] He has served as the chief of the Asian Division of the Library of Congress. [3]

Rimer has written about Classical Japanese literature, [4] as well as modern Japanese drama, and has translated several works. [5] He has written several works for a popular audience, [4] and has been credited with making Japanese drama more accessible to Americans. [5]

Rimer earned a PhD in Japanese Literature from Columbia University in 1971. [2] Rimer and co-author Jonathan Chaves received the Japan–U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature in 1998 for their translation of the Wakan rōeishū titled Japanese and Chinese Poems to Sing: The Wakan Roei-shu.

Rimer is a son-in-law of Paul Mus (1902-1969), a Southeast Asia and Buddhism expert.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gao Xingjian</span> Chinese novelist, critic, playwright and Nobel laureate

Gao Xingjian is a Chinese émigré and later French naturalized novelist, playwright, critic, painter, photographer, film director, and translator who in 2000 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for an oeuvre of universal validity, bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity." He is also a noted translator, screenwriter, stage director, and a celebrated painter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haruki Murakami</span> Japanese writer (born 1949)

Haruki Murakami is a Japanese writer. His novels, essays, and short stories have been best-sellers in Japan and internationally, with his work translated into 50 languages and having sold millions of copies outside Japan. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Gunzo Prize for New Writers, the World Fantasy Award, the Tanizaki Prize, Yomiuri Prize for Literature, the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, the Noma Literary Prize, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Kiriyama Prize for Fiction, the Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Fiction, the Jerusalem Prize, and the Princess of Asturias Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tsubouchi Shōyō</span> Japanese author, critic, playwright, translator, editor, educator, and professor (1859–1935)

Tsubouchi Shōyō was a Japanese author, critic, playwright, translator, editor, educator, and professor at Waseda University. He has been referred to as a seminal figure in Japanese drama.

Zeami Motokiyo, also called Kanze Motokiyo, was a Japanese aesthetician, actor, and playwright.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fumiko Enchi</span> Japanese writer (1905–1986)

Fumiko Enchi was the pen-name of Fumiko Ueda, one of the most prominent Japanese women writers in the Shōwa period of Japan. As a writer, Enchi is best known for her explorations into the ideas of sexuality, gender, human identity, and spirituality.

The University of Virginia Japanese Text Initiative (JTI) is a project intended to provide a comprehensive online database of Japanese literary texts. Sponsored by the University of Virginia and the University of Pittsburgh East Asian Library, the online collection contains over 300 texts from Japan's pre-modern and modern periods. Pre-modern texts include the Man'yōshū, the Tale of Genji, the Kokin Wakashū, and the Hōjōki. Modern texts include works by Natsume Sōseki, Mori Ōgai, and Akutagawa Ryūnosuke.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fujiwara no Kintō</span> Japanese poet and bureaucrat (966–1041)

Fujiwara no Kintō, also known as Shijō-dainagon, was a Japanese poet, admired by his contemporaries and a court bureaucrat of the Heian period. His father was the regent Fujiwara no Yoritada and his son Fujiwara no Sadayori. An exemplary calligrapher and poet, he is mentioned in works by Murasaki Shikibu, Sei Shōnagon and in a number of other major chronicles and texts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kunio Kishida</span> Japanese writer (1890–1954)

Kunio Kishida was a Japanese playwright, dramatist, novelist, lecturer, acting coach, theatre critic, translator, and proponent of Shingeki. Kishida spearheaded the modernization of Japanese dramaturgy and transformed Japanese theatre acting. He was a staunch advocate for the theatre to operate as a dual artistic and literary space.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leonard Pronko</span> American scholar of Japanese theater (1927–2019)

Leonard Cabell Pronko was an American theatre scholar best known for introducing the Japanese dance drama kabuki to the West, beginning in the 1960s. He was a professor of theatre at Pomona College in Claremont, California, where he taught from 1957 to 2014.

<i>Wakan rōeishū</i> 11th-century anthology of Chinese and Japanese poetry

The Wakan Rōeishū is an anthology of Chinese poems and 31-syllable Japanese waka for singing to fixed melodies.

Toshiki Okada is a Japanese playwright, theater director, novelist, and founder of the theatrical company chelfitsch. He is known for "his use of hyper-colloquial Japanese and his unique choreography."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hakuchō Masamune</span> Japanese critic and writer

Hakuchō Masamune, born Tadao Masamune, was a noted Japanese critic and writer of fiction, and a leading member of the Japanese Naturalist school of literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kaoru Osanai</span> Japanese theater director, playwright, and actor (1881–1928)

Kaoru Osanai, was a Japanese theater director, playwright, and actor central in the development of modern Japanese theater.

Richard France is an American playwright, author, actor, and film and drama critic. He is a recognized authority on the stage work of American filmmaker Orson Welles. His publication, The Theatre of Orson Welles, which received a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Book Award in 1979, has been called "a landmark study" and has been translated into Japanese. His 1990 companion volume, Orson Welles on Shakespeare has been praised by Welles critics and biographers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Akiko Baba</span> Japanese tanka poet and literary critic

Akiko Baba is a Japanese tanka poet and literary critic. Her real name is Akiko Iwata.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Chaves</span>

Jonathan Chaves, B.A. Brooklyn College, 1965; M.A. Columbia University, 1966; PhD Columbia University, 1971, is Professor of Chinese Language and Literature at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He is a translator of classic Chinese poetry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sakae Kubo</span> Japanese playwright and novelist

Sakae Kubo was a Japanese playwright and director. Kubo studied and translated German literature at Tokyo Imperial University and then soon he became the disciple of another famous playwright and theatre director, Kaoru Osanai. From his mentor, Kubo had adopted Shingeki theater, a new type of drama that developed in Japan in the early 20th century under the influence of Western-style theater. To honor the death of his teacher, Kubo began to write one of his most famous works, which was The Land of Volcanic Ash: A Play in Two Parts, translated by David Goodman. This play was most recognized for its focus on socialism that was depicted in pre-war Japan. It is seen as realist drama, for it describes the struggles of a reform-minded intellectual in the Hokkaido countryside which took place during the Soviet famine of 1932–33.

A Woman's Life, is the most famous play by Kaoru Morimoto and was the most frequently staged play during postwar Japan. Consisting of seven scenes and five acts, A Woman's Life tells the story of Kei as she grows from a young girl into a successful businesswoman. The play was commissioned as propaganda by the Japanese military in 1945 and was first staged later that year by the Literary Theatre (Bungakuza). Before passing away, Morimoto rewrote the first and last scenes in order for the play to remain relevant after the war.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yoshie Hotta</span> Japanese writer

Yoshie Hotta was a Japanese writer of novels, short stories, poetry and essays, noted for his political consciousness. His most acclaimed works include Hiroba no kodoku, which was awarded the Akutagawa Prize, and Kage no bubun. Hotta has also been associated with the Atomic bomb literature genre.

References

  1. "Rimer, J. Thomas". Library of Congress Authorities. Retrieved 13 December 2011.
  2. 1 2 "J. Thomas Rimer". East Asian Languages and Literatures. University of Pittsburgh. Archived from the original on May 30, 2010. Retrieved December 12, 2011.
  3. "Achievers". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. June 13, 1991. Retrieved December 12, 2011.
  4. 1 2 Taylor, Robert (December 7, 1988). "Keys to the Mysteries of Japanese Literature". The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on January 31, 2013. Retrieved December 12, 2011.
  5. 1 2 Wetmore Jr., Kevin J. (Fall 2011). "J. Thomas Rimer". Asian Theatre Journal. 28 (2): 400–408. doi:10.1353/atj.2011.0058. S2CID   163052410.