Cecilia Segawa Seigle

Cecilia Segawa Seigle is Professor Emerita of Japanese Studies in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations of the University of Pennsylvania. Seigle retired from the Penn teaching position in June, 1999. A native born Japanese, Seigle came to the United States in 1954 and received an B.A. in English from Western College for Women, Oxford, Ohio (1957, now Miami University ), an M.A. from Bryn Mawr College (1959) also in English, and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in Japanese studies (1971).

Prior to her doctoral studies she was Editor of the WFLN Philadelphia Guide for seven years. Between 1971 and 1778, she worked for The Franklin Institute as Head of the Asian Section, F.I. Research Lab, then as Director of Membership. In 1984 she was asked to teach at the University of Pennsylvania. Since then, she taught as lecturer and senior lecturer before being promoted to Associate Professor in 1995. In 1993, she received the Provost's Award for Distinguished Teaching. Upon her retirement she was promoted to be Professor emerita of Japanese Studies.

In 1985-86 and 1996-97, she received the Japan Foundation's Research Fellowship. The first research grant produced Yoshiwara - the Glittering World of the Japanese Courtesan (University of Hawaii Press,1993). She has been a research fellow of the Historiograhical Institute of the University of Tokyo for the last several years. An original research book entitled Kojo Shinanomiya no nichijo seikatsu: Mujohoin-dono gonikki wo yumu (The Everyday Life of Imperial Princess Shinanomiya: Reading the Mujohoin-dono Diary), (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2001) was written at the Institute and was published under Seigle's Japanese name Yoshiko Segawa. The book is based on the 36-volume diary (dated 1666-1700) of Princess Shinanomiya Tsuneko, the 16th daughter of Emperor Gomizunoo and the wife of Konoe Motohiro, Chancellor and Regent.

Her most recent works are the lead essay in A Courtesan's Day Hour by Hour (Amsterdam: Hotei Publishing, 2004), and two essays: "The Decorousness of the Yoshiwara - A Rejection of Shunga," and "Expectations and Disappointments of Yoshiwara Visitors" in Japanese Erotic Fantasies: Sexual Imagery of the Edo Period (Amsterdam: Hotei Publishing, 2005). Her most recent essay "Ukiyoe and the Yoshiwara" will be in the Encyclopaedia of Ukiyoe, (Amsterdam: Hotei Publishing, 2006). Her other publications include translations of modern Japanese literature such as The Family (Ie) by Toson Shimazaki (Univ. of Tokyo Press,1976); Darkness in Summer by Takeshi Kaiko (Knopf, 1972); Into a Black Sun by Takeshi Kaiko (Kodansha, 1980) and Five Thousand Runaways and other short stories, by Takeshi Kaiko (Dodd Mead, 1987). She also co-translated with E. Dale Saunders, The Temple of Dawn by Yukio Mishima (Knopf, 1973).

Her essays, book reviews, biographical essays and monographs have appeared in The Journal of Japanese Studies, The Journal of Asian Studies, The Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Historian, and Dictionary of Literary Biography, Japanese Fiction Writers Since World War II, etc.