Oki Yasushi
大木康

Field of Study

Years of Stay at HYI

Aug 1999 to Jun 2000

University Affiliation (Current)

University Affiliation

OKI Yasushi is Professor of East Asian Literature. The main subject of his research is Chinese Literature of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. He received his B.A. (1981), M.A. (1983) and Doctor of Literature degree (1998), all from the University of Tokyo. Before being appointed to his current position in 2002, he was a Research Associate at the Institute of Oriental Culture, the University of Tokyo (1986), Associate Professor at the faculty of letters, Hiroshima University (1989) and Associate Professor at the faculty of Letters, the University of Tokyo (1991). He stayed at Harvard Yenching Institute as a visiting scholar from 1999 to 2000 and at National Central University in Taiwan as a visiting professor from 2006 to 2007.He has long been interested in Feng Menglong (1574-1646, born in Su-zhou), who is well known as a compiler of the vernacular short stories “San-yan”. He has been researching various aspects of culture and society in late Ming Jiangnan, such as popular literature, civil service examinations, publishing businesses, intellectual friendships and courtesan culture, approaching these topics as different facets of Feng Menglong’s work and life. Recently he is interested in Mao Xiang, another man of letter in Jiangnan in the late Ming and early Qing.
His publications include A study of Mao Xiang and his Reminiscences of the Convent of Shadowy Plum-blossoms (Tokyo: Kyuko-shoin, 2010, 539pp.), A Study of the Publishing Culture in late Ming Jiangnan (Tokyo: Kenbun-shuppan, 2004, 268pp.), A Study of Feng Meng-long’s Shange (Tokyo: Keiso-shobo, 2003, 840pp.), Chinese Gay Quarters, the World of Courtesans in Nanjing, Qinghuai in the Ming and Qing Dynasties (Tokyo: Seidosha, 2002, 293 pp.), History of Chinese Literature from the Point of View of Discontent (Tokyo: Chikumashobo, 1996, 245 pp.), and An Unorthodox Intellectual in the Late Ming: Feng Menglong and Suzhou Culture , (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1995, 254 pp.).

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