Japan’s evolving representations of the maiko, or apprentice geisha, in films and other popular media will be the focus of this year’s Sylvia Trelles Lecture series.

UNC Chapel Hill professor emeritus Jan Bardsley, author of Maiko Masquerade will lead the discussion in the Carnegie Room of the Hege Academic Commons March 22 from 4 to 5 pm.

Jan will trace how the maiko, long stigmatized as a victim of sexual exploitation, emerges in the 2000s as the chaste keeper of Kyoto’s classical artistic traditions.  No longer perceived as a toy for men’s amusement, Jan writes that maiko serves as a catalyst for women’s consumer fun. 

Hiroko Hirakawa Professor of Modern Language Studies says that geisha has long been a metonymy for the often sexualized image of Japanese women in the United States. “Whether you are familiar with the 1997 best-selling novel, Memoirs of a Geisha, its film adaptation, or the 2013 controversy surrounding Katy Perry’s “Geisha-style” performance, Jan’s lecture will give you an excellent opportunity to learn how geisha apprentice see themselves and how they are talked about in contemporary Japan,” says Hiroko. 

The Sylvia Trelles Lecture, named in honor of retired Professor of Spanish Sylvia Trelles, is open to anyone in the Guilford community interested in learning about Japanese women. Interested students are also invited to an informal coffee hour with Jan, from 1 to 2 pm the day of the talk in the Collaboratory of Hege.