Speaker

Matthew Stavros

Matthew Stavros is a historian of early Japan at the University of Sydney and a translator of Classical Japanese literature. He is the author of Kyoto: An Urban History of Japan's Premodern Capital (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2014) and the translator of Hōjōki: A Buddhist Reflection on Solitude, Imperfection and Transcendence (Tuttle, 2024) and The Tale of Princess Kaguya (Tuttle, 2026). His research focuses primarily on the material culture of premodern Japan and eastern Asia, with particular interest in cities, buildings, and religious monuments. He trained in architectural and urban history at Kyoto University and read history at Princeton University where he earned a Ph.D. He teaches modern and classical Japanese language, Japanese history and historiography, and more broadly on the histories and cultures of East and Southeast Asia.

Sessions

The Princess Kaguya Paradox: Translator as Cultural Consultant

In this presentation, I will draw on my recent work with Hōjōki (方丈記) and Taketori monogatari (竹取物語) to discuss how the rigors of translating Classical Japanese literature shine a light on the fundamental challenges of cross-cultural interpretation – how do we navigate high-context ambiguity and ‘untranslatable’ cultural concepts while negotiating the delicate balance between source fidelity...

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Panel: Windows on literary translation

Literary translation is a field about which many are curious. In this session, three high-profile literary translators, Tomoko Aoyama, Matthew Stavros and Alison Watts, shed light on its inner workings from their niche perspectives. They will touch on questions of dialect, gender, genre, styles, readerships and even – gasp – money, to identify the issues, challenges, trends, inspirations and...

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