Biography
My goal as a historian of ancient literatures and cultures is to recover and convey something of the richness and complexity of premodern literary and artistic phenomena. I work in both synchronic (structure of the cultural field at a specific point in time) and diachronic (development over time) contexts. I am currently completing a manuscript on the great thriving of waka poetry in the tenth century (ca. 890-970). Other projects include a study of the uses of Sinitic culture in Heian Japan and a history of the reception of the 36 Immortal Poets. Before coming to Illinois, I taught at Oxford University and was Resident Foreign Researcher at the National Institute of Japanese Literature (NIJL) in Tokyo.
Research Interests
Origins, structure, and development of the literary field
Reception and uses of Sinitic culture in Japan
Waka poetry and poetics
Medieval, early-modern, and modern reception of Heian literature
East Asian literary cultures
History of East-West encounters
Education
PhD Columbia University
Courses Taught
EALC 398 Writers and Sino-Japanese Cultural Interaction 600-1900
EALC/CWL 275 Masterpieces of East Asian Literature
EALC 305 Premodern Japanese Literature in Translation I
JAPN 407 Introduction to Classical Japanese
JAPN 408 Readings in Classical Japanese
EALC/CWL 230 Popular Cultures of Contemporary East Asia
EALC 199 Adaptation and Appropriation in Japanese Cultural History
EALC 550 - Itineraries in Waka Culture
Additional Campus Affiliations
Assistant Professor, East Asian Languages and Cultures
Assistant Professor, Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies
Recent Publications
Persiani, G. P. (2020). Poems to Unite and Poems to Divide: What Audience Reactions Reveal About the Social Functions of Heian Waka. Proceedings of the Association for Japanese Literary Studies, 21, 16-27. Article 2. https://journals.library.brandeis.edu/index.php/PAJLS/article/view/1640/1028
Persiani, G. P. (2020). The Public, the Private, and the In-Between: Poetry Exchanges as Court Diplomacy in Mid-Heian Japan. Japan Review: Journal of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies, 35, 7. https://doi.org/10.15055/00007600
Persiani, G. P. (2016). China as Self, China as Other: On Ki no Tsurayuki's Use of the wa-kan Dichotomy. Sino-Japanese Studies, 23, 31-58. Article 2. http://chinajapan.org/articles/index.php/sjs/article/view/44/50
Persiani, G. P. (2014). Tradurre le Poesie del Genji. In A. Maurizi (Ed.), Testo a Fronte (Vol. 51, pp. 161-178)
Persiani, G. P. (2013). Review: E. Mack's Manufacturing Modern Japanese Literature: Anthologies, Awards, and the Ascription of Literary Value. East Asian Publishing and Society, 3(1), 111-113. https://doi.org/10.1163/22106286-12341246