This dissertation is a translation and study of the early medieval court diary Fleeting is Life (Tamakiwaru), completed in 1219 by Kengozen (1157–ca. 1226), an old nun who once served at court. Meant both as a eulogy for a retired empress Kengozen served and also as a reference for other women at court, Kengozen's memoir shares certain rhetorical characteristics of tone, content, and organization with male court diaries and classified records (buruiki), especially those focusing on annual rites and ceremonies (nenjûgyôji). As a result, the dissertation serves as a corrective to the tendency in modern scholarship to emphasize the differences between male and female court diaries, and highlights by contrast areas of permeability between them.

After introducing the dual emphases of eulogy and service in Kengozen's memoir, the dissertation delineates the rise of Kengozen's mistress, Retired Empress Kenshunmon'in, and reviews the memoir's depiction of the hierarchy of the retired empress's ladies-in-waiting. It then proceeds to an investigation of the literary persona Kengozen creates in the work in comparison to other diaries by Heian and Kamakura women. The detailed descriptions in the diary of the social and material layout of Kenshunmon'in's court, the narrative of her earliest memory in service, and the depiction of her exemplary behavior during a palace fire are all central to that self-fashioning.

The dissertation then moves to a discussion of the very different environment of the court of Kengozen's next mistress, Hachijôin, and her appointment as caretaker of the young princess Shunkamon'in. That appointment appears to have been the impetus for creating the service-oriented parts of the diary as a reference for future ladies-in-waiting. The study concludes by arguing that Kengozen's service career and literary output represent a convergence of gendered identities within her own household, the men of which were literary scholars and the women of which traditionally served at court in a matrilineal succession.