Thomas Blenman Hare is William Sauter LaPorte '28 Professor in Regional Studies and Professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

.

Originally trained as a Japanologist and spending much of his career at Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

, Hare has broken new ground by applying post-structuralist analysis of semiotics

Semiotics

Semiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of signs and sign processes , indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication...

 and discourse

Discourse

Discourse generally refers to "written or spoken communication". The following are three more specific definitions:...

 of the body to ancient Egyptian language and culture in his book ReMembering Osiris: Number, Gender, and the Word in Ancient Egyptian Representational Systems (1999, Stanford), and, most recently, brought speech-act theory and performance studies

Performance Studies

Performance studies have been growing as an academic field since the 1960s. Performance studies believe in the social act of Doing as it takes performance itself as the object of inquiry.The process of defining it becomes a practice in performance studies itself...

 to bear on Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese Noh

Noh

, or - derived from the Sino-Japanese word for "skill" or "talent" - is a major form of classical Japanese musical drama that has been performed since the 14th century. Many characters are masked, with men playing male and female roles. Traditionally, a Noh "performance day" lasts all day and...

 drama in his translation and commentary on Zeami's Performance Notes (2008, Columbia). He has also written on Kūkai

Kukai

Kūkai , also known posthumously as , 774–835, was a Japanese monk, civil servant, scholar, poet, and artist, founder of the Shingon or "True Word" school of Buddhism. Shingon followers usually refer to him by the honorific titles of and ....

 and Kamo no Chōmei

Kamo no Chomei

was a Japanese author, poet , and essayist. He witnessed a series of natural and social disasters, and, having lost his political backing, was passed over for promotion within the Shinto shrine associated with his family. He decided to turn his back on society, take Buddhist vows, and became a...

.