News Article

Andrew Goble, associate professor of history at the University of Oregon and an expert on pre-modern Japanese history, will be the keynote speaker for Gonzaga University annual William L. Davis, S.J., Lecture tonight (Wednesday, Nov. 8) from 7-9 p.m., in the Jepson Center’s Wolff Auditorium. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is titled, “From the Scrolls of Diseases to Spring Pictures: The Medical and the Erotic in Pre-modern Japanese Art.”

Goble has conducted much research in medieval Japanese medical history, and his work has brought him into contact with a set of prints called the Scroll of Gross Afflictions, which depicts a number of medical ailments encountered by pre-modern Japanese physicians. Also, Goble will show images from the so-called “Floating World” of Medieval Japanese eroticism, and will discuss the historical, moral and aesthetic dimensions of the art in its historical context.

The Davis Lecture series was established in honor of the pioneering work of the late Rev. William Lyle Davis, S.J., and his dedication to Gonzaga. He was a history professor from 1931-1960 and chaired the history department from 1943-1960.

For more information contact GU history assistant professor Eric Cunningham at (509) 323-5973 or via e-mail.