Stephen M. Forrest

Senior Lecturer; Japanese Undergraduate Advisor; Japanese Exchange Program Director

Steve Forrest has been teaching Japanese literature and language at UMass Amherst since 1998. Responsibilities include pre-modern and modern language and literature, with a special focus on premodern scripts (kuzushiji 崩し字 and hentaigana 変体仮名). Ongoing translation and database projects focus on the print culture of the Edo period (especially visual-verbal popular texts).

Doctoral dissertation, "The model life of an eccentric poet: Nōin Hōshi and Nōin shū" (2005).

PhD, Harvard University, East Asian Languages & Civilizations (Japanese Literature).

BA (Hons) Oriental Studies (Japanese), University of Oxford. 

Research Areas

• Edo-period print culture
• Literature of travel in pre-modern Japan
• Manuscript and authentic texts in language pedagogy and related digital humanities projects
• Classical Japanese poetry collections and poetic theory
• the literature and culture of Hokkaidō

Courses Recently Taught

Japanese 144: Premodern and modern Japanese literature

Japanese197M: Study abroad - Japan

Japanese 197P: Introduction to Contemporary Japan (summer course taught in Japan)

Japanese 297K & 397K: Elementary & Intermediate Kanji

Japanese 397T: Hokkaidō Summer Seminar (summer course taught in Japan)

Japanese 497C: Readings in Modern Japanese

Japanese 532: Media Japanese I

Japanese 556 & 557: Classical Japanese I & II

Japanese 570: Research in Japanese sources

Japanese 597A: Manuscript Japanese

Japanese 691A: Graduate Seminar

Proseminars on Edo period texts (recent topics: kaidan 怪談, gōkan 合巻)