Arron O'Connor

MPhil Candidate in Japanese Studies 2024-2026

As a literary historian by training, my academic interests centre upon how communities shape their identities through text and material and how worldviews are manifested in object and literature. This way of viewing sources came to me through my undergraduate specialism in European medieval studies, where text and material context are more obviously inseparable than their modern counterparts may seem.

My current MPhil research examines the social and intellectual history of consumption and readership in early 19th century Japan. In particular, I examine how fakes, forgeries and counterfeits can be viewed as a way in which epistemologies and taxonomies can be repurposed appositional to authority embedded in such systems as the bakufu. I situate this discussion in the printing and publishing practices of 1830s Edo, with a particular focus on Ryūtei Tanehiko’s gōkan, Nise Murasaki inaka Genji.

I received my BA in English Language and Literature from the University of Oxford, after which I worked as an Outreach Officer for three years at one of the University’s colleges. I am currently pursuing my MPhil in Japanese Studies at Hertford College.

Supervisor: Professor Sho Konishi

Research Interests:

19th century social and intellectual history
Material and media consumption in late Tokugawa Japan
Edo publishing practices and culture