Kendra Strand specializes in premodern Japanese literature and visual culture, with expertise in travel writing, poetry, calligraphy, and book history. Her research is founded on examining the relationships between text, image, and object in cultural production.

Her book, An Unfamiliar Place: Poetry, Power, and the Travel Memoir in Medieval Japan (University of Hawai'i Press, 2025), translates and analyzes travel memoirs by three men associated with the imperial court: the second Ashikaga shogun and general Yoshiakira (1330–1367), the Buddhist lay priest Sōkyū (ca. 1350), and the statesman Nijō Yoshimoto (1320–1388). All three shared elite social status, political connections, and a deep engagement with poetry. An Unfamiliar Place examines how these three traveler-poets used both literal and metaphorical “unfamiliar places” as sites of expressive power, not only to explore novel ways of existing in and moving through the world, but also to reassess their assumptions about the social and cultural significance of geographic space. In the face of volatile times and political strife, Yoshiakira, Sōkyū, and Yoshimoto sought to manipulate literary conventions, finding innovative ways to represent their world and, in so doing, shape and take ownership of it.

Research interests

Her research interests extend to issues of canon and interpretation in literature and art, as well as the ways in which historical themes surface in contemporary popular culture. She is also interested in material culture, particularly aesthetic issues of calligraphy and paper decoration, as well as the history of books, publication practices, and the circulation of texts in medieval and early modern Japan.

Select publications

Books

• An Unfamiliar Place: Poetry, Power, and the Travel Memoir in Medieval Japan (University of Hawai'i Press, 2025)

Articles

• “Hashihime: Bridging Text and Image in the Tale of Genji Scrolls.” In Dennis Washburn, ed., The Tale of Genji (Norton Critical Edition, 2021)
• “Jingū: Narratives of Motherhood and Imperial Rule in Early Japan.” In Claire Phelan and Dana Cooper, eds., Motherhood in the Ancient/Classical World (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017)

Translations

• Nijō Yoshimoto, "Solace of Words at Ojima." Published in An Unfamiliar Place: Poetry, Power, and the Travel Memoir in Medieval Japan (University of Hawai'i Press, 2025)
• Fujino Kaori, “Identity” by Fujino Kaori, translation into English with Translator's Notes. U.S.-Japan Women's Journal, No. 53 (November 2018)
• Sōkyū, “Souvenirs for the Capital: A Travel Journal by Sōkyū.” Asiatische Studien – Études Asiatiques, 71.2 (June 2017)

Courses taught

• JPNS:1506 - Ghostly Japan
• JPNS/CLSA 2127 - Books of the Silk Roads
• JPNS:3202 - Traditional Japanese Literature in Translation
• JPNS:3206 - Warriors' Dreams
• JPNS:3207 - Japan Illuminated: Literature & Visual Culture
• JPNS:3601 - Contemporary Japanese Culture
• JPNS:4201 - Genji Lab