Takaki Hiraishi named 2004 BioKyowa Visiting Japanese Scholar

Takaki Hiraishi, Professor of Letters at the University of Tokyo, is the 2004 recipient of the BioKyowa Visiting Japanese Scholar Award at the Center for Faulkner Studies at Southeast Missouri State University.

Professor Hiraishi will visit the Southeast campus from September 9-16.  His visit is sponsored by BioKyowa, Inc., and will be hosted by Kohta Fujiwara, the president of the company, and Robert Hamblin, the director of the Faulkner Center.

One of Japan’s leading Faulkner scholars, Professor Hiraishi has published two books on Faulkner: A Melancholic Design: Faulkner’s Development in His Early Works (1993) and The Author’s Manner of Working: A Study of Faulkner’s Methods (2003).  He has also published articles on Faulkner in Japanese, Korean, and English journals. 

Currently the president of the American Literary Society of Japan, an organization of 1,800 members, he also serves as an editor of the Faulkner journal published by the Faulkner Society of Japan.

In addition to his Faulkner work, Professor Hiraishi has published studies of Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, Owen Wister, Raymond Carver, Richard Brautigan, Bobbie Ann Mason, and other American writers.

At Southeast he will utilize the Louis Daniel Brodsky Collection of Faulkner materials to further his Faulkner research.  He will also deliver a public lecture on the Japanese interest in Faulkner and other American authors.