This new volume in Genji studies comprises a collection of six individual essays by leading international scholars addressing the Tale of Genji Scrolls and the Tale of Genji texts in the context of new critical theory relating to cultural studies, narrative painting, narratology, comparative literature and a global view of medieval romance. Uniquely, it also links new critical theory with multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary interests. Increasingly, scholarly research views reading TheTale of Genji Scrolls as an inseparable part of reading The Tale of Genji itself. Hence this book, which is subdivided into three sections: Reading the Genji Scrolls; Reading the Genji Texts; Reading the Genji Romance. The contributors are Yukio Lippit (Harvard), Sano Midori (Gakushuin), Richard Okada (Princeton), Murakami Fuminobu (Hong Kong), Jeremy Tambling (Manchester) and Richard Stanley-Baker (formerly Hong Kong)

Richard Stanley-Baker taught at Hong Kong University from 1985-2005, and now teaches part-time in United International College, Zhuhai, PRC. He has taught at National Taiwan University (1980-85), The University of Tokyo (1995-96), at Princeton University (1999-2000), U.C. Berkeley and Stanford. His publications include a translation of Takahashi Sei'ichiro's Traditional Woodblock Prints of Japan (Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1972); major articles include eight in Y. Shimizu & C. Wheelwright ed., Japanese Ink Paintings, (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Art Museum, l976) and 'Japanese ink painting of the Muromachi Period', in Grove ed., The Dictionary of Art; 1996. Murakami Fuminobu is Associate Professor at the Department of Japanese Studies, School of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Hong Kong. He teaches Japanese language, literature, film and culture. He is author of Postmodern, Feminist and Postcolonial Currents in Contemporary Japanese Culture (Routledge: hardcover 2005; paperback 2009), Ideology and Narrative in Modern Japanese Literature (Van Gorcum, 1996). Jeremy Tambling is Professor of Literature at the University of Manchester, and before that, Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Hong Kong. He is author of several books, and two forthcoming: 'Allegory' in the 'New Critical Idiom' series (Routledge, 2009) and 'Dante in Purgatory: States of Affect' (Brepols 2010)), both of which relate to his interest in critical theory and medievalism east and west. His most recent book was 'Going Astray: Dickens and London' (Longman, 2008).