Contact Information
Biography
Paul S. Atkins is professor of Japanese in the Department of Asian Languages and Literature at the University of Washington, Seattle. His specialization is the literature, drama, and culture of medieval Japan.
Publications include the monographs Teika: The Life and Works of a Medieval Japanese Poet (University of Hawai’i Press, 2017) and Revealed Identity: The Noh Plays of Komparu Zenchiku (Center of Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 2006) as well as peer-reviewed articles in journals including Monumenta Nipponica, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Journal of Asian Studies, Asian Theatre Journal, Journal of the American Oriental Society, and Japanese Language and Literature.
Professor Atkins was awarded the Kyoko Selden Memorial Translation Prize by Cornell University in 2021 and the William F. Sibley Memorial Translation Prize by the University of Chicago in 2011. He holds a Ph.D. in Japanese from Stanford University, studied at the University of Tokyo as a Fulbright dissertation fellow, and has held visiting faculty or research appointments at Kyoto Prefectural University, Nanzan University, Hōsei University, and Keiō University.
Research
Selected Research
- Atkins, Paul. "What is the Japanese 'wabi-sabi' aesthetic actually about? 'Miserable tea' and loneliness, for starters." The Conversation, March 12, 2024.
- Sébastien Guillet, Christophe Corona, Clive Oppenheimer, Franck Lavigne, Myriam Khodri, Francis Ludlow, Micheal Sigl, Matthew Toohey, Paul S. Atkins, Zhen Yang, Tomoko Muranaka, Nobuko Horikawa, and Markus Stoffel. “Lunar eclipses illuminate timing and climate impact of medieval volcanism.” Nature, vol. 616, pp. 90–95 (2023). Download PDF
- Paul S. Atkins. “Hengoku no kajin: yōkyoku Teika kara Myōjō e (The Poet in Limbo: From the Nō play Teika to Myōjō)” in Teika no motarashita mono, ed. Nihon Joshi Daigaku Nihon Bungakka, vol. 20 of Nihon Joshi Daigaku sōsho (Tokyo: Kanrin Shobō, 2018), pp. 69-104. In Japanese and English.
- “Hengoku no kajin: yōkyoku Teika kara Myōjō e (The Poet in Limbo: From the Nō play Teika to Myōjō)” in Teika no motarashita mono, ed. Nihon Joshi Daigaku Nihon Bungakka, vol. 20 of Nihon Joshi Daigaku sōsho (Tokyo: Kanrin Shobō, 2018), pp. 69-104. In Japanese and English.
- Paul S. Atkins. Teika: The Life and Works of a Medieval Japanese Poet. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2017. Download PDF
- Paul S. Atkins. “The Word Monosugoshi and Changing Perceptions of Nature in Medieval Japan.” Japanese Language and Literature 47:2 (October, 2013), pp. 159-92. Download PDF
- Paul S. Atkins. "Depictions of the Kawara-no-in in Medieval Japanese Noh Drama." Asian Theatre Journal 27:1 (2010).
- Paul S. Atkins. "Meigetsuki, the Diary of Fujiwara no Teika: Karoku 2.9 (1226)." Journal of the American Oriental Society 130:2 (2010): 235-58.
- Paul S. Atkins. "Chigo in the Medieval Japanese Imagination." The Journal of Asian Studies 67:3 (2008): 947-970.
- Paul S. Atkins. "Nijō v. Reizei: Land Rights, Litigation, and Literary Authority in Medieval Japan." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 66:2 (2006): 495-529.
- Paul S. Atkins. Revealed Identity: The Noh Plays of Komparu Zenchiku. University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies, 2006.
Research Advised
- Kai Xie, “Remapping the Sino-Japanese Dialectic: Interplays of Japanese and Sino- Japanese Verse in Premodern Japan.” Department of Asian Languages and Literature, University of Washington, 2017.
- Jyana S. Browne, "Creating a Public: Love Suicide on the Osaka Stage, 1703-1722." Ph.D. dissertation, School of Drama, University of Washington, 2017.