After last year’s meeting at Boston, the Association of Japanese Literary Studies will return this year (October 4-6, 2002) to Purdue, where AJLS began. The theme, "Japanese Poeticity and Narrativity Revisted," is also a return to the "roots" of our interests in Japanese literature. The old topics of uta and monogatari will be examined from new and different standpoints and approaches. A number of papers will discuss such underdeveloped topics as translation, comedic/playful writings, critical and theoretical writings, and general literary concepts of visuality and fictionality. Eight panels of presentations by more than two dozen presenters, together with two keynote addresses by Professors Kojima Naoko (Rikkyo University) and Mizuta Noriko (Josai International University) and a poetry reading concert by Professor Yoshimasu Goozoo and his wife Marilya, will extensively examine these topics and others related to the understanding of Japanese literature. The panel session themes are as follows: • "Aspects of Modern Poetry and Narrative: Feminism, Experimentalism, and Visuality"; • "Poeticity and Narrativity in Tokugawa Poetry"; • "Literary Space in Prewar Japan: Redefining the Narrative of Modern Narrativity"; • "Waka, Buddhism, and the Medieval Commentarial Tradition"; • "Contemporary Intertextuality and Practices of Deconstructive Rewriting"; • "Women and Translation: Subversive Textuality"; • "Theorization of Poetry and Narrative: Tradition and Modernity"; • "Politics of Literature: Reality, Literarism, and Nativism".

Registration is required of all conference participants. The registration fee, $30 for regular participants, $20 for graduate students, covers Friday dinner, Saturday and Sunday breakfast, Saturday lunch, and Saturday reception. Registration is requested by September 30, 2002. Information about registration: Meeting Coordinator Kathy Hyman. Tel; 765/494-2758 Fax; 765/ 494-0567. kfhyman@purdue.edu. Information about the conference: AJLS Conference Chair Eiji Sekine. eiji.sekine@gte.net.