Famous in Japan

By Danielle Cochran, Volunteer Kobayashi, Kiyochika. Lady Sei Shōnagon, 1897, Triptych; color woodblock prints, embossing. Written around the same time as The Tale of Genji, The Pillow Book is often considered its companion that details court life during the Heian Era (794 to 1185 CE). While the former is a work of fiction that one is to make inferences about the time it was written, the latter was written almost like a diary and gives a firsthand viewpoint of its author, Sei

By Isabel Hurwitz, Intern Spring 2026 “The Son Also Roses” from King of the Hill - Season Seven, Episode Six –“This one’s pretty.” –“Not according to the book.” –“But I like that mine’s a little off-center, it’s got wabi-sabi.” Is natural imperfection beautiful? For some time now, an audio clip from the animated series King of the Hill has been taking over platforms like TikTok, mentioning wabi-sabi as a part of an argument about beauty. The audio became so popular that it sp

By Danielle Cochran, Volunteer Lafcadio Hearn in 1889 Patrick Lafcadio Hearn, who went by Lafcadio, was born in 1850 on the Greek island of Lefkada, his namesake. The second of three sons, his Irish father Charles Bush Hearn was a surgeon in the British army and his Grecian/Maltese mother was Rosa Antonia Cassimati. At the age of 6 he was brought to Ireland and his parents eventually divorced and his father remarried. Hearn and his brother were sent to live with separate rela

By Solara Patel-Elliott, Intern Spring 2026 The Yuki Onna (Yuki-onna (ゆき女), depicted by artist Sawaki Suushi in Hyakkai-Zukan (百怪図巻) (1773) Of the more than one thousand types of yōkai (妖怪) present in Japanese folklore, there is one transcendent being whose tale is particularly fitting in the cold winter months. Yuki Onna (雪女) is one of the most well-known yōkai, depicted in legends across various regions of Japan and common in Japanese media, literature, and film. Japanese y

By Danielle Cochran, Volunteer Masako Shirasu in 1952 Of the many people who have had an enormous impact on Japanese arts and culture, author and fine art collector Masako Shirasu stands out as a distinguished figure. Born Masako Kabayama in Tokyo in 1910, she hailed from a prosperous family: her grandfathers were admirals in the Imperial Japanese Navy and her father was a lawyer. As her family was well-off, she started taking lessons in Noh theatre at the age of 4. It is oft