Members’ Corner

English translation

AI-assisted English translation. The Japanese original remains authoritative.

Originally published: 13 January 2020.

This is a historical record of member introductions, classes, and writing guidance. The current status of the positions in the photograph captions, the reading-course schedule and registration arrangements, and the personal-advice service has not been confirmed.

Members' Corner

Photograph: Marco Gonzalez, head of the San Diego branch and a photographer, with his wife and President Hamano, in front of the monument commemorating Commodore Perry's arrival in Japan, at Uraga.

Short Seminar Classes

A reading group meets twice a month on Saturdays, from 14:30 to 16:00, at Yomiuri Culture on the ninth floor of Sogo department store, by the east exit of JR Yokohama Station. President Seishu Hamano provides instruction in composing poems and developing prose-writing skills, and also offers correction sessions outside the class hours. You are warmly encouraged to take part.

On your first day, please complete the registration procedure at the Yomiuri Culture counter, purchase the course texts and other materials, and pay the tuition fee there.

Course Content

1. Fundamentals of poetry and creative writing, including approaches to composition and plotting.
2. Guidance on themes and subject matter. Vocabulary instruction, followed by reading aloud.
3. An approach to composing poetry: everyday subjects are welcome, but we particularly welcome work that conveys the spirit of Romanticism through a passionate or elevated sensibility. We value the precise use of words rich in implication.
4. Writing poetry with feeling: seek to move the reader, rather than merely convey information. Go beyond conventional expressions of sorrow and joy.
5. Developing vocabulary: why is it difficult to use literary Japanese freely? Instruction also covers okurigana, the kana endings attached to kanji.

Guidance on Applying for Research Posts

Speaking from nearly forty years as a full-time professor in a university's doctoral programme in literary studies, I find that many students entering graduate school today have rather naive expectations. Most aim only to acquire the credential of a master's or doctoral degree, readily assuming that this alone will secure a full-time university position. It is not that simple. What matters is acquiring a broad education and the learning needed to guide younger scholars as a distinguished scholar in one's own right.

The key points in creative work and academic writing are as follows:

1. A well-developed theme and thorough attention to previous research.
2. The maturity of the work at the point of publication, and the concentration of its prose style.
3. An approach that is not formulaic, with accurate and fair quotation.
4. The appropriateness of the bibliography.
5. The treatment of secondary and tertiary sources.

Guidance extends to the basic question of whether the prose is easy for readers to understand. Once the right approach is established, the desire to study can grow dramatically. A narrow outlook—choosing a single writer such as Basho or Saikaku and writing a doctoral dissertation on that writer—is not enough. To succeed in an appointment process, one must grasp, with vivid interest, the spirit of the age surrounding that writer or literary movement.

Young people often hear that university appointments depend on networks, including teacher–student relationships, and tend to act as though they must accommodate themselves to such connections. From the appointing institution's perspective, however, a candidate who covers broad fields—literature by period, language studies, or country-specific studies grounded in history—is seen as a suitable successor to an eminent scholar approaching retirement.

Photograph: Takao Suzuki, chief adviser and Professor Emeritus of Keio University (left); President Hamano (right).

Personal Advice

We have established a personal-advice service for members.

We offer a listening ear on employment, love, marriage, continuing a marriage, divorce, wills, inheritance, and other matters.

Strict confidentiality is maintained.

If you contact us, we will respond by telephone.