Image from “The Tale of Genji” courtesy of Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., Gift of Charles Lang Freer.

“The Women of The Tale of Genji” will be presented by the Japan Society of Northern California on Thursday, Sept. 11, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. (registration at 6 p.m.) at San Francisco State University’s Downtown Campus, 835 Market St., sixth floor, Room 607.

To commemorate the millennium anniversary of Murasaki Shikibu’s literary classic, “The Tale of Genji,” the Japan Society will host a series of events that celebrate this historic novel.

Lecture events will include a brief overview of the major themes in the work, so prior familiarity with the story will be helpful (but is not required) to enjoy each presentation.

The series begins with a discussion of “The Tale of Genji’s” female characters and the significant roles they play in the story. A panel of experts will consider the position of women in Japanese society — their power as well as their limitations — during the Heian period, as illuminated in this classic work by Japan’s most famous woman novelist.

The speakers are:

• Dr. John Wallace, who teaches premodern Japanese language and literature at the UC Berkeley. Specializing in Heian period women’s memoirs, he is the author of “Objects of Discourse: Memoirs by Women of Heian Japan.” He is currently working on the poetry of Ono no Komachi and Ise as early precursors to the romantic persona constructed by Heian memoirists. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University.

• Dr. Liza Dalby, who has lived and studied in Japan periodically since her early teens. After earning her undergraduate degree at Swarthmore and graduate degree at Stanford in cultural anthropology, she returned to Japan to research and complete her dissertation on the place of geisha in modern Japan. She is the author of several books, including “The Tale of Murasaki,” a novel that chronicles life in Japan’s golden age of high aesthetics as told through the voice of Lady Murasaki at the end of her life.

• Dr. Ellen Susan Peel (moderator), a professor in San Francisco State University’s Department of Comparative and World Literature. The author of “Politics, Persuasion, and Pragmatism: A Rhetoric of Feminist Utopian Fiction,” she also has published articles on teaching “The Tale of Genji.” Peel earned her undergraduate degree at Harvard and her Ph.D. in comparative literature at Yale.

The cost is $5 for Japan Society members, members of co-sponsoring organizations and students, $10 general. Seating is limited and advance registration is recommended.

Co-sponsored by the Institute of East Asian Studies and USF Center for the Pacific Rim, in cooperation with the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco.

For more information, call (415) 986-4383 or visit www.usajapan.org.