Gunnar Jinmei LinderAssociate professor
About me
I am an Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer) in Japanese Language and Culture at the Department of Asian, Middle Eastern and Turkish Studies.
I have an MA degree in the Japanese bamboo flute shakuhachi (performing arts) from Tokyo National University of the Arts (Tokyo Geidai, 1997), and I have lived in Japan for about 20 years (1985-2005). After graduating from Geidai, I worked in Japan as a freelancing lecturer, translator/interpreter, shakuhachi performer, as well as teacher of this instrument.
I have been teaching and conducting research at Stockholm University since my return to Sweden in 2005.
I finished my PhD in 2012 with a dissertation titled Deconstructing Tradition in Japanese Music: A Study of Shakuhachi, Historical Authenticity and Tradition of Transmission (available in free text at DiVA).
Teaching
I teach classes in Japanese grammar, kanji and reading on basic and up to intermediate level. I also teach courses on Japanese Stage Arts and Music, Japanese History, as well as Contemporary Society.
Apart from lectures and seminars, I also supervise both Bachelor and Master theses, and I am also appointed supervisor for one of our PhD students.
At present I am Deputy Head of Department with a general area of responsibility covering issues of education and pedagogics. Previously I have also been Director of Doctoral Studies (2017–2019) and Educational Director of Studies (2018–2020).
Research
My PhD thesis, Deconstructing Tradition in Japanese Music (2012), centered around the concepts tradition and transmission, and how a tradition can be and still often is being constructed. As material I used a traditional music genre and its instrument, the bamboo flute shakuhachi, which is also the instrument I perform as an artist. The thesis is downloadable through the digital archive (DiVA) of Stockholm University (available through the link below).
My MA thesis in shakuhachi as performing art was about ornamental techniques used in ensemble playing with the string instruments shamisen and koto. The thesis is in Japanese, but I have included some of the results of this research in a guide for players of the solo repertoire of shakuhachi, Notes on Kinko-ryū Shakuhachi Honkyoku, published in 2011.
Presently I am involved in several research projects. One is to finish the second volume of an instruction book, relating to the esoteric genre of solo music for the shakuhachi. I published the first volume Notes on Kinko-ryū Shakuhachi Honkyoku, as mentioned above, in 2011. Volumen 1 contains discussion and analysis of ornamental techniques, and detailed explanations, scores and recordings of 10 of the 36 pieces in the repertoire. The second volumen will contain an additional 15 pieces.
I am also working on an anthology on the shakuhachi together with a colleague, which will contain academic studies in a variety of fields, eleven academic chapters, as well as four more personal reflections on the shakuhachi and traditional Japanese music (interviews with four established practitioners of the shakuhachi in Japan). We will submit the final manuscript to Routledge, London in the beginning of 2024.
Yet another project relates to the songtexts of a genre of art music, jiuta-sōkyoku, that developed in the Edo period (1603–1868). I am both a contributing editor to this volume as well as co-author of an introductory chapter about the historical background to the music, instruments and venues that relate to the genre. This book project was published by Routledge, on May 9, 2024.
Click here to see my publications in the Digital Archive DiVA.