Kanechiku Nobuyuki 兼築信行 (1956–2026)

[Laffin, Christina]

We write to inform colleagues that sadly, Kanechiku Nobuyuki has passed on July 7. Professor Kanechiku was a scholar of waka at Waseda University where he welcomed many of us and fostered an active circle of poetry scholars. His research centered around materiality and embodiment of waka, from paper folding and writing to the sounds of poetry performed. As a mentor, he trained many fine researchers who now teach at universities across Japan. 

 

His publications include Waka o rekishi kara yomu 和歌を歴史から読む, which he coedited with Tabuchi Kumiko; Waka Opening Up to the World: Language, Community, and Gender, coedited with Haruo Shirane, Tabuchi Kumiko, and Jinno Hidenori, and numerous articles and chapters on subjects such as fragments (kohitsu-gire), the poet Fujiwara no Teika, and various poetry commentaries.

 

Kanechiku-sensei was a proponent of learning paleography as an essential research skill, having created a series of instructional books and an online kuzushiji course. He was a long-time member and a leader within the Waka Bungakkai 和歌文学会.

 

Professor Kanechiku frequently gave lectures and seminars and participated at symposia outside Japan, including at the University of Washington, Seattle, Stanford, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, among others.

 

He had a prodigious ability to dash off a perfectly formed poem at a moment’s notice. In 2020 he published a collection of his poems, Kaigen zengo 2016-2019 元前後 2016-2019, about which the poet Tawara Machi noted: “The God of poetry sometimes does edgy things. As though throwing a surfboard to him, it prompted a scholar of classical waka to compose their own tanka. And the result of mastering the art of riding life’s biggest waves is this collection. While the eyes revel at the care-free assurance and colorfulness, the heart is moved.”

 

Kanechiku Nobuyuki’s energetic support of scholars and sharing of knowledge, sources, ideas, and extemporaneous poetry will be missed by many both in Japan and around the world.

 

Information on the wake and funeral may be found on the Waseda University Faculty of Letters website: https://www.waseda.jp/flas/hss/news/2026/07/08/15856/

 

Christina Laffin (Christin...@ubc.ca) and Gian Piero Persiani (gp2...@illinois.edu)