Oliver WHITE

I spent a rewarding year affiliated to Waseda University in Tokyo thanks to the generosity of the Canon Foundation in Europe. Despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, the support of Canon Foundation in Europe Fellowship enabled me to complete a chapter of my PhD dissertation, which focuses on the development, influences, and reception of Jippensha Ikku's best-selling humorous poetic travelogue series, Tōkaidōchū Hizakurige ("Hoofing it Along the Eastern Seaboard Road"). Hizakurige first appeared in the opening years of the 19th century and has remained in the popular imagination to the present day. At Waseda I was fortunate enough to work with Professor Ikezawa Ichirō, an expert on Edo period (1603-1868) popular literature, with whose guidance I read and transcribed various primary texts in their original, which underpinned the analyses of my opening chapter.