“No, I do not want to write a report for you in Japanese,” I declared, being uncharacteristically blunt.

I’d been doing research in Japan for over ten years now. I understood the importance of courtesy and willingness to acquiesce to requests, no matter how unreasonable I thought they were.

But I was up against a deadline.

The tenure clock was ticking, and I had to publish more articles. To stop now and compose a lengthy description of my research topic in Japanese would have taken up precious time. Time I just didn’t have.

Besides, why?

Why was it necessary? It was clearly just a formality.

Busywork.

The very idea made me angry. Wasn’t I already a university professor? (Well, an untenured university professor!) Hadn’t I earned my credentials?

It was 1995, and I was on a three-month fellowship as a Visiting Researcher at Kokugakuin University. Three short months, January to March. I had to get my new research jumpstarted. My goal was to explore the university archives and read, read, read.

Kokugakuin, in Tokyo, was inaugurated in 1882, and—as the name (Institute of National Studies) suggests—the primary rationale for its founding was to study and preserve the Japanese classics and national history. As such, the university had a strong collection of ancient, early modern, and modern Japanese literature.

It was the perfect place to begin my research on women writers of the Meiji-period (1868-1912), and I was eager to spend my time in the library stacks.

This was the first year the university had offered a researcher position, and I had the sense they were figuring it out as they went along. There were two of us in the inaugural cohort—myself and Dr. Wang, a scholar from China. They assigned each of us to a faculty member and charged our mentors with directing our research.

They assigned me to Professor Yasuyuki Ogikubo, a renowned scholar of Meiji-era literature.

“Sir,” I explained that afternoon in his faculty office. “I simply don’t have the time to write a report.”

Ogikubo Sensei blinked briefly behind his wire-rim glasses then smiled.

“How can I help you?” he offered. “Perhaps you should give ME an assignment.”

“You could help me read these difficult texts.”

“I see. Where would you like to start?”

I honestly didn’t know.

I could feel tears rising to my eyes. The enormity of the project looming before me felt overwhelming.

Could I really do what I had planned to do?

The Meiji era was so complex, so rich, so intricate, how was I ever going to find my way?

“Tell me about your project?” Ogikubo Sensei spoke kindly, as if he sensed my frustration.

And then he sat quietly while I awkwardly explained my long research trajectory.

Earlier, when I worked on Uno Chiyo, I always wondered about her motivations. What foremothers had she had? Who did she draw on for inspiration?

In one essay she mentions the feminist journal, Seitō (Bluestockings, 1911-1916). That led me to explore Seitō further, considering the ways the journal might have shaped the writing interests of a young Uno Chiyo. In the late 1980s, several years after I had finished my dissertation, I spent months reading through the back issues.

I was still at International Christian University then, and the library had an entire facsimile set of Seitō.

First Issue of Seitō

I explored more about Seitō’s main editor, Hiratsuka Raichō (1886-1971) and wrote a biographical entry on her in Chieko Irie Mulhern’s Japanese Women Writers: A Bio-Critical Source Book. This would be my first academic publication.

The more I explored Seitō’s contexts and contents, the more I encountered references to Jogaku zasshi (Women’s Education Journal, 1885-1904), an even earlier journal.

Founded by men, ostensibly the journal was intended to encourage women to read deeper and wider and to work at writing their own entries and essays. The contents of the journal included articles about European and American women writers—George Sand and Harriet Beecher Stowe—biographies of women educators and innovators like Flora MacDonald and Madame Curie, but also how-to guides instructing women on proper cooking and cleaning.

Covers of Jogaku zasshi

The more of Jogaku zasshi I read, the more surprised I was to find articles and stories written by women. Why had no one studied these courageous, innovative writers?

This, I decided, would be my next project.

I felt drawn to these mostly forgotten writers. Their voices seeped forth as I turned one musty journal page after another in the deep recesses of the library.

They spoke in tones that were hopeful and urgent, at times playful and whimsical. Other times downcast.

“Could I be the next Shōnagon?” they seemed to wonder, referring to the famous Heian writer, Sei Shōnagon, as they stretched for elegant wordplay and fresh lists of grievances.

“Here I am, the Modern Murasaki,” a few of the bolder writers proclaimed in their works.

Whereas I was unable to meet my writers in the flesh, as I had with Uno Chiyo, I still had incredibly uplifting experiences with other real-life people who took the time to help me navigate libraries and tricky turns of phrase.

Ogikubo Sensei was one.

“It would be most helpful, if you could guide me through these stories by women writers and the criticism they received,” I told him.

Sensei’s eyes lit up and he began to pull one tome after another from the bookshelf behind him.

“Let’s start with a literary overview of who was writing at the time,” he suggested, opening a book on Tsubouchi Shōyō (1859-1935).

Next he pulled out volumes on Futabatei Shimei (1864 -1909) and then on some writers I was less familiar with from my graduate work, such as Saganoya Omuro (1863-1947), Ishibashi Shian (1867–1927), and Oguri Fūyō (1875-1926). All men.

“Are these the writers you want to study?”

“No, sir. I am interested in women writers.”

“Women writers? Like Higuchi Ichiyō (1872-1896)? Or maybe Yosano Akiko (1878-1942)?”

Sensei listed the two women who appear most often in anthologies of Meiji literature—Ichiyō, the tragic writer who died far too young and Akiko, the famed poet and woman activist.

“I want to learn more about the writers Shimizu Shikin (1868–1933), Miyake Kaho (1868-1943), Kimura Akebono (1872-1890), the translator Wakamatsu Shizuko (1864-1896), Tazawa Inabune (1874-1896), Hasegawa Shigure (1879–1941), and more, so many more!”

Meiji women writers: Hasegawa Shigure, Miyake Kaho, Tazawa Inabune

Ogikubo Sensei scanned his bookshelves.

“We won’t find any of those writers here.”

“Some of their works are in the pages of Jogaku zasshi, but I find the text difficult to read. Can you help me?”

“Bring it to me when we meet next time, and we’ll see.”

As instructed, I checked volume after volume of the Jogaku zasshi facsimiles out of the Kokugakuin library, made photocopies, and brought these to Ogikubo Sensei’s office. We spent our meeting time pouring over the stories.

Earlier I had read Shikin’s “Koware yubiwa” (The Broken Ring, 1891), which had been re-printed and annotated in a recent volume on overlooked women’s writing edited by Imai Yasuko (1987). I wanted to read other stories and essays by Shikin.

I remember sitting across from Ogikubo Sensei in his office, hunched over his low coffee table, Shikin’s story “Ichi seinen iyō no jukkai” (A young man’s strange reminiscences, 1892) and my many papers spread out between us.

Professor Ogikubo read the story to me line by line.

First, he would read the Meiji-era text—thick with classical inflection—next, he would “translate” the line into modern Japanese. Finally, he would spend a few minutes discoursing on the nuances of the text, explaining word-play, and acknowledging Shikin’s talents.

“Her story was published in Jogaku zasshi just a few months after Kitamura Tōkoku’s famous essay ‘Ensei shika to josei’ (The Pessimistic Poet and Women),” Ogikubo Sensei noted. “I suspect Shikin is reacting to his work here,” he told me.

This led us deep into a discussion of Tōkoku but more significantly into the way attitudes towards romantic love evolved in Meiji Japan.

I will save that story for Valentine’s Day!

My three months at Kokugakuin, sitting in Ogikubo Sensei’s office and soaking up his wisdom, rushed to a close. I returned to St. Louis with reams of notes and tons of ideas about ways to proceed.

I could DO this!

In the time that I had before tenure, I wrote one article after another on Meiji women writers and managed to publish in the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies and The Review of Japanese Culture and Society.

I also worked like a mad woman on longer projects. By 1997 I had a rough draft of what would become my second monograph, Lost Leaves: Women Writers of Meiji Japan.

A grant from the Japan Foundation allowed me to return to Kokugakuin and to another three months visiting Ogikubo Sensei, this time to work through Miyake Kaho’s “Yabu no uguisu” (Warbler in the Grove, 1888). Stay tuned for that adventure…