Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Japanese Art and Culture
Harvard College Professor
Melissa McCormick earned a dual B.A. in art history and Japanese language and literature from the University of Michigan (1990), her Ph.D. in Japanese Art History from Princeton University (2000), and studied at Gakushūin University (1996-98) while conducting her dissertation research. After a year as a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), she served as Atsumi Assistant Professor of Japanese Art at Columbia University (2000-05), before moving to Harvard in 2005.
As an art historian with an interdisciplinary approach, McCormick investigates the relationship of pictorial form to social history and contexts of artistic production, focusing in particular on the interrelationship of text and image. Tosa Mitsunobu and the Small Scroll in Medieval Japan (Washington, 2009) studies the relationship of scale and format to pictorial representation and literary genre, while combining analyses of texts and images with historical research into hypothetical readers and viewers in the late fifteenth-century. Several articles have examined the tradition of ink-line (hakubyō) narrative painting and communities of female readers, writers, and amateur artists, and a book on this tradition of monochrome narrative painting is in progress. McCormick’s ongoing interest in The Tale of Genji has led to publications on the culture of the tale in medieval Japan, warrior patronage, female readership, and the Genji as lived experience. Her research on the Genji Album in the collection of the Harvard University Art Museums, which dated the work to 1509 and identified its patron, was featured on an NHK documentary (2008) and is the subject of a forthcoming book on Genji painting. Another current project includes articles in English and Japanese on the meaning and function of Murasaki Shikibu portraits. Professor McCormick offers courses ranging from the Introduction to Japanese Art and Architecture, to a freshman seminar on pictorial narrative covering manga and anime, to seminars on Gender and Japanese Art, and advanced graduate seminars on reading and translating medieval emaki.
BOOKS
Carpenter, John C. and Melissa McCormick, eds. The Tale of Genji: A Japanese Classic Illuminated. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press, 2019.
Carpenter, John C. and Melissa McCormick, eds. The Tale of Genji: A Japanese Classic Illuminated. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press, 2019.
McCormick, Melissa. The Tale of Genji: A Visual Companion. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018.
McCormick, Melissa. Tosa Mitsunobu and the Small Scroll in Medieval Japan. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009.
McCormick, Melissa. “Purple Displaces Crimson: The Wakan Dialectic as Polemic.” In Dora Ching, Louise Cort, and Andrew Watsky, eds. Around Chigusa: Tea and the Arts of Sixteenth-Century Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017.
McCormick, Melissa. “Bijutsu-shi kara mita Shinkurodo—Merissa Makomikku shi intabyu [The New Chamberlain from an Art Historical Perspective: Interview with Melissa McCormick].” In Abe Yasuro, et al eds. Muromachi jidai no shojo kakumei ‘Shinkurodo’ emaki no sekai [Revolutionary Girl of the Muromachi Period: The World of The New Chamberlain. Tokyo: Kasama Shoin, 2014.
McCormick, Melissa. “The Appeal of ’Tokugawa Illuminated Manuscripts’: Tosa Mitsusada’s Scenes of Suma and the Hofer Collection of Early Modern Scrolls in the Harvard Art Museums..” In Shimohara Miho ed., Kinsei Yamato-e saiko (Reconsidering Early Modern Yamato-e ). Tokyo: Br{“u}cke. In Japanese, trans. Ido Misato., 2013.
McCormick, Melissa. “Flower Personification and Imperial Regeneration in The Chrysanthemum Spirit [’Kiku no sei monogatari’ ni okeru hana no gijinka to koto no saisei]..” In Kokubungaku Kenkyū Shiryōkan, ed. America ni wattata monogatari-e. Tokyo: Perikansha, 2013.
McCormick, Melissa. “In Situ: Buddhist Art and Ritual at the Imperial Court.” In Elegant Perfection Masterpieces of Courtly and Religious Art from the Tokyo National Museum. Houston: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2012.
McCormick, Melissa. “Mountains, Magic, and Mothers: Envisioning the Female Ascetic in a Medieval Chigo Tale.” In In Gregory P.A. Levine, Andrew M. Watsky, and Gennifer Weisenfeld, eds. Crossing the Sea: Essays on East Asian Art in Honor of Professor Yoshiaki Shimizu. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012.
McCormick, Melissa. “The Genji Poetry Match, Manuscript Culture, and the Art of Transcription [‘Shahon bunka’ to sozoteki na tensha—hakubyo ‘Genji monogatari utaawase emaki’ o megutte].” In Genjie shusei. Tokyo: Geika Shoin, 2011.
McCormick, Melissa. “Monochromatic Genji: The Hakubyo Tradition and Female Commentarial Culture.” In Haruo Shirane ed. Envisioning The Tale of Genji: Media, Gender, and Cultural Production. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.
McCormick, Melissa. “Peeking Into the ‘Genji Room’: Ink-line Genji Scrolls and the Nyobo Perspective [Genji no ma o nozoku: hakubyo Genji monogatari emaki to nyobo no shiza].” In Genji monogatari o yomitoku 1: Egakareta Genji monogatari. Tokyo: Kanrin Shobo, 2006.
CHAPTERS
McCormick, Melissa. “Ōtagaki Rengetsu’s Waka Poetics: Sentiment, Selfhood, and the Saigyo Persona.” In Japan in the Age of Modernization: The Arts of Ōtagaki Rengetsu and Tomioka Tessai. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 2023.
McCormick, Melissa. “Furemu to paratekusuto: ‘Genji keizu’ to jimyaku no monogatari [Frame Stories and Paratexts: Genji Genealogies and Lineal Narratives].” In Sano Midori Sensei Koki Kinen Ronshu Kankokai ed., Zokei no poetika: Nihon bijutsushi o meguru atarana chihei [The Poetics of Form: New Horizons in Japanese Art History]. Seikansha, 2021. In Japanese, trans. Professor Sano Midori.
McCormick, Melissa. “Poetic Visions: The Literary Imagination in Japanese Painting.” In A Legacy for Learning: The Jane and Raphael Bernstein Collection. Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2021.
McCormick, Melissa. “Beyond Narrative Illustration: What Genji Paintings Do.” In The Tale of Genji: A Japanese Classic Illuminated. Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press, 2019.
McCormick, Melissa. “Murasaki’s Mind Ground: A Buddhist Theory of the Novel.” In Murasaki Shikibu’s The Tale of Genji: Philosophical Perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.
McCormick, Melissa. “The Chrysanthemum Spirit,“ translation and introduction.” In Monsters, Animals, and Other Worlds. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018.
ARTICLES
McCormick, Melissa. “’Murasaki Shikibu Ishiyamamode zufuku’ ni okeru sho mondai—wa to kan no sakai ni aru Murasaki Shikibu zo“ [Murasaki Shikibu at Ishiyamadera: An Image between Wa and Kan].” In Kokka 1434. In Japanese, trans. by Professor Ido Misato. Pp. 5-21. 2015.
McCormick, Melissa. “Genji Goes West: The 1510 Genji Album and the Visualization of Court and Capital.” In The Art Bulletin . Pp. 54-85. 2003.
McCormick, Melissa. “Documentation Concerning the Production of the Tale of Genji Album (Harvard University Art Museums) Recorded in the Diary of Sanjonishi Sanetaka .” In Kokka 1241. Pp. 27-28. 1999.