User:Kurtishanlon

About Me
I am a PhD Candidate at the University of British Columbia, writing my dissertation on Uta-awase from the Heian period.

My academic interests are specifically in a type of Japanese poem called waka, and I am very interested in the ways literary and ludic cultures intersect. There are many games and forms of play from Japan that incorporate waka knowledge and composition, such as uta-awase and hyakunin isshū karuta, and I am interested in researching the societal role of these games.

Education

 * 2017 Ten-month intensive Japanese program, Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies, Yokohama, Japan
 * 2015 MA in Japanese Humanities, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan
 * 2009 BA in Japanese, minor in English, University of California, Los Angeles

Wikipedia Projects
My goal on Wikipedia is to facilitate the wider dissemination of knowledge about Japan and Japanese literature through open access channels.

I primarily focus my attention on the section of Wikipedia dedicated to Japanese literature, specifically premodern. My activities include
 * Expanding stubs into full articles
 * Writing new articles about historical people or literature that does not exist on English Wikipedia
 * Translating articles from Japanese Wikipedia on these topics and publishing them on English Wikipedia