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J. Keith Vincent is Associate Professor of Japanese & Comparative Literature and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Boston University, where he also serves as Convener of Japanese Language and directs the MFA Program in Literary Translation. His research focuses on modern Japanese literature, queer theory, translation, and the novel, with particular attention to how genders inform genres, how sexuality shapes storytelling, and the role of literary friendships in aesthetic forms. He has a longstanding interest in the aesthetics of haiku and its influence on the modern Japanese novel, especially through the relationship between Masaoka Shiki and Natsume Sōseki.
Vincent is the author of Two-Timing Modernity: Homosocial Narrative in Modern Japanese Fiction (Harvard Asia Center, 2012) and co-editor of Reading Sōseki Now and Sōseki no ibasho. Recent publications include articles such as “Genji’s Ghosts” (The Literary Imagination, 2026), “Tragic Fates and the Balm of Beauty: Reading the Tale of Genji in Boston” (Shisō, 2024), and “Purple and White: Sōseki and Shiki’s Homosocial Genji” in the Norton Critical Edition of The Tale of Genji (2021), as well as contributions to Rethinking Japanese Feminisms (2017) and the Routledge Handbook of Modern Japanese Literature (2016, revised 2025). He created and directs the digital project Genjipoems.org, a collaborative database of nearly 800 poems from The Tale of Genji. His translations include Okamoto Kanoko’s A Riot of Goldfish (2010), which won the 2011 U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature, Tanizaki Jun’ichirō’s Devils in Daylight (shortlisted for the 2018 Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize), an abridged translation of Sei Shōnagon’s The Pillow Book (2021), and forthcoming works from Tanizaki. He is currently completing a biography of Masaoka Shiki and a retranslation of Sōseki’s Michikusa. Vincent has delivered lectures at institutions including the University of Chicago and Otsuma Women’s University.
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Explore the Boston University Pride flags controversy, where removals sparked protests, a presidential apology, and policy pause—balancing free speech and inclusivity in US higher ed.
Explore the controversy at Boston University where pride flags were removed from windows, igniting faculty backlash over signage policies and academic freedom amid national DEI scrutiny.
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