Profile

Glynne Walley received an MA in Japanese Literature from Washington University in St. Louis in 2001 and a PhD in Japanese Literature from Harvard University in 2009.  His research interests involve popular literature and how it negotiates the requirements of industry and genre, the demands of a mass audience, and the aspirational pull of “serious” literature.  His main focus is popular fiction of the late Tokugawa period;  his book Good Dogs: Edification, Entertainment & Kyokutei Bakin's Nansō Satomi hakkenden (Cornell East Asia Series, 2017) is the first monograph-length study of Hakkenden, a landmark of premodern Japanese fiction. 

He is also working on a complete translation of Hakkenden.  The first volume, Part One - An Ill-Considered Jest, was published in summer 2021 by Cornell East Asia Series.  The second volume, Part Two - His Master's Blade, was published in early 2024.

Teaching interests focus on Japanese literature of the early modern (Edo or Tokugawa) period, but also include medieval literature, modern literature, visual culture, comics broadly defined (from medieval picture scrolls to contemporary manga), and translation studies.