Edwina Palmer

{{Short description|English academic (born 1955)}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2024}}

{{Infobox academic

| name = Edwina Palmer

| birth_date = {{Birth-date and age|1955}}

| birth_place = Chelmsford, United Kingdom

| death_date =

| death_place =

| nationality = New Zealand, United Kingdom

| discipline = Japanese Studies, Geography

| workplaces = University of Canterbury, Victoria University of Wellington

| alma_mater = School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

| doctoral_students =

| known_for =

| spouse = Geoffrey Rice

| awards = Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette

}}

Edwina Palmer is a former associate professor of Japanese Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.

Palmer was born in Chelmsford, United Kingdom in 1955. She studied at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, graduating with a PhD in geography and a BA (Hons) in Japanese language and literature.{{cite web |url=https://www.victoria.ac.nz/slc/about/staff/edwina-palmer |title=Edwina Palmer – School of Languages and Cultures – Staff Profile |access-date=25 April 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150115100841/https://www.victoria.ac.nz/slc/about/staff/edwina-palmer |archive-date=15 January 2015 |publisher=Victoria University of Wellington |author-link=Victoria University of Wellington}} She lectured at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand from 1984 to 2010, before joining Victoria University in Wellington.

Palmer has written many articles on Japanese culture, focusing on humor and hidden meaning in traditional Japanese texts. She has also worked on the eighth-century document Harima no Kuni Fudoki, analyzing the stories it contains from the perspective of archaeology and orality, humor and hidden meaning. Some of her work is prepared jointly with her husband, the historian Geoffrey Rice.{{cite book |title=Asian Futures, Asian Traditions |isbn=1901903168 |quote=Her work together with husband Geoffrey Rice on the history of the 1918 influenza pandemic in Japan is appraised as the most thorough in the subject to date. |last1=Palmer |first1=Edwina |date=2005 }}