David Barnett Lurie

Education

Selected Papers and Publications (for errata click here)

• Entry on the Man'yoshu for the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, 4th edition (forthcoming)
  
• “The Development of Japanese Writing,” in The Shape of Script: How and Why Writing Systems Change, ed. Stephen Houston, SAR Press, 2012
  
• Realms of Literacy: Early Japan and the History of Writing, Harvard University Asia Center, 2011
• “Tsuda Sokichi (1873-1961) and the Age of the Gods: The Persistence of Early Modern Approaches to Ancient Texts,” talk at Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies, UCLA, 23 May 2011
  
• "Titles of the Current Realm: Script, Language, and the Earliest Japanese Bibliographies," talk at Toronto Centre for the Book, 18 March 2011
  
• review of J. Marshall Unger’s The Role of Contact in the Origins of the Japanese and Korean Languages, in Japan Studies 29:3 (December 2009)
  
• “The Suda Hachiman Shrine Mirror and its Inscription,” Impressions 30 (2009)
  
• "The Subterranean Archives of Early Japan: Recently Discovered Sources for the Study of Writing and Literacy," in Books in Numbers, ed. Wilt Idema, Harvard-Yenching Library, 2007
  
• "Man'yoshu no moji hyogen o kano ni suru joken (oboegaki)" (Notes on the Factors that Enable Expressive Inscription in the Man'yoshu), Kokugo to kokubungaku 84:11 (November 2007).
  
• "Language, Writing, and Disciplinarity in the Critique of the 'Ideographic Myth': Some Proleptical Remarks," Language & Communication 26 (2006)
  
• "Comparative Literacies of the Ancient World," organizer, participant, and chair of roundtable, American Historical Association Annual Meeting: Philadelphia, 6 January 2006
  
• "Orientomology: The Insect Literature of Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904)," in JAPANimals: History and Culture in Japan's Animal Life, ed. Gregory M. Pflugfelder and Brett L. Walker, University of Michigan Press, 2005.
• "The Author Formerly Known as Prince Shotoku: Royal Authority and Narratives of Literacy in Early Japan," paper delivered, Association of Asian Studies Annual Meeting: Chicago, 3 April 2005.
  
• "On the Inscription of the Hitomaro Poetry Collection: Between Literary History and the History of Writing," Man'yoshu kenkyu 26 (May 2004).
  
• "A Tale of Two Turtles: Animal Omens and the Inscription of Time in Early Japan"; paper delivered, Association of Asian Studies Annual Meeting: San Diego, 5 March 2004.
  
• "Hitomaro kashu 'ryakutai' shoki ni tsuite: 'hitaiokun' ron no minaoshi kara," Kokubungaku: Kaishaku to kyozai no kenkyu 47:4 (March 2002). ("On 'Abbreviated Form' Inscription in the Hitomaro Poetry Collection: Rethinking the Theory of 'Non-equivalent Logographs'")
• "The Origins of Writing in Early Japan: From the 1st to the 8th Century C.E." Columbia University Ph.D. Dissertation, 2001.
• "Windows on Japanese Literature"; six-part monthly newspaper series introducing modern Japanese authors (Ibuse Masuji, Enchi Fumiko, Inoue Yasushi, Endo Shusaku, Abe Kobo, Ariyoshi Sawako) to English-speaking readers. Daily Mainichi: Tokyo, February-July 2000.

Research interests

• History of writing systems
• Cultural, intellectual, and literary history of early Japan
• Development of reading systems and Japanese reception of Chinese texts
• History of Japanese dictionaries and encyclopedias
• Emergence of the hiragana and katakana syllabaries in 9th century Japan
• Medieval and early modern commentaries on early Japanese texts
• Early modern Japanese epigraphy and archaeology
• History of Japanese linguistic thought
• Japanese and comparative mythology
  

Contact Information

(212) 854-5316; fax (212) 678-8629

DBL11@columbia.edu

Current and Past Courses 
 
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Page created 24 November 2001; revised 9 May 2012