Websites
- Words without Borders Founded in 2003, Words Without Borders promotes cultural understanding through the translation, publication, and promotion of the finest contemporary international literature.
- The Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Founded in 1941, the Association for Asian Studies (AAS)—the largest society of its kind, with more than 7,000 members worldwide—is a scholarly, non-political, non-profit professional association open to all persons interested in Asia.
Digital Collections
- Cultural Japan Discover digital resources on Japanese Culture from all over the world
- Rōkyoku (Naniwabushi) Digital Archive Rōkyoku (Naniwabushi) Digital Archive includes approximately 10,000 standard-playing (SP) records of traditional narrative storytelling covering the period from the beginning to the middle of the twentieth century.
- Hoji Shinbun Digital Collection The Hoji Shinbun Digital Collection is currently the world’s largest online archive of open-access, full image Japanese American and other overseas Japanese newspapers in Asia and South America.
- Japanese Multi-Volume Titles Finding Aids Collection The digitized materials in this collection are selections from the finding aids (indexes, tables of contents, etc.) for a wide range of Japanese-language multi-volume sets. The topical coverage of the sets described includes art, business and economics, history, literature, and legal proceedings from the mid-nineteenth-century to the beginning of the twenty-first century.
- NDL Digital Collections Digitized materials from the collections of the National Diet Library
- Waseda University Library Japanese and Chinese Classics The purpose of this database is to provide the widest possible public access to the Waseda University Library’s collection of Japanese and Chinese classics, in the form of bibliographical information, related scholarly materials, as well as full-text images.
- Japanese Special Collections in the C.V. Starr East Asian Library, UC Berkeley Since 2006, the C. V. Starr East Asian Library, University of California, Berkeley has been engaged in collaboration with the Art Research Center of Ritsumeikan University to digitize parts of the Library's Japanese collections. This portal provides free access to digital surrogates of these rare and historical sources related to Japan for research, teaching, and exploration. In addition to those digitized by the ARC researchers, the portal also provides access to digital images provided by other research institutes. New materials are added regularly.
- Gordon W. Prange Collection The Gordon W. Prange Collection is the most comprehensive archive in the world of Japanese print publications issued during the early years of the Occupation of Japan, 1945-1949. These books, magazines, newspapers, posters, maps and more were subjected to censorship by the Allied Forces. They bear censorship markings ranging from check-in and examination dates to deletions, suppression and other changes.
- Web版 夏目漱石デジタル文学館 Digital archive of Soseki manuscripts from the Kanagawa Museum of Modern Literature
- Masaoka Shiki Haiku database The Shiki kaishi (子規会誌) is the official journal of the Matsuyama Shiki Society (松山子規会) whose members study and promote the work of Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902), a major figure in the development of the modern haiku and Japanese literature more broadly. The Shiki kaishi has been published continuously on a quarterly basis since April, 1979, and contains hundreds of articles on Shiki and his circle, including such figures as Natsume Sōseki, Takahama Kyoshi, Kawahigashi Hekigotō, and Naitō Meisetsu. . With the permission of the Society’s membership, Boston University makes its contents available and searchable for issues 1-161.
- Unpinning History: Japanese Posters in the Age of Commercialism, Imperialism, and Modernism (USC Libraries) Unpinning History: Japanese Posters in the Age of Commercialism, Imperialism, and Modernism highlights USC Libraries unique collection of Japanese posters that were produced in the 1910s and 1920s. Curated by the “Later Japanese Art” class of Spring 2020, the exhibition focuses on approximately half of the collection to illuminate themes emblematic of Japan in the tumultuous Taishō (1912-1926) and early Shōwa (1926-1989) periods.
Featured Resources
- Digital Resources and Projects on East Asia An open-access repository that houses a wide range of online tools, archives, exhibitions, and more in a searchable and filterable platform. The aim of this table is to provide researchers and educators with a convenient way to locate and explore digital materials based on a variety of thematic content.
Japanese History
Browse books on:
Sources of Japanese Tradition by
Sources of Japanese Tradition is a best-selling classic, unrivaled for its wide selection of source readings on history, society, politics, education, philosophy, and religion in the Land of the Rising Sun. In this long-awaited second edition, the editors have revised or retranslated most of the texts in the original 1958 edition, and added a great many selections not included or translated before. They have also restructured volume 1 to span the period from the early Japanese chronicles to the end of the sixteenth century. New additions include: * readings on early and medieval Shinto and on the tea ceremony, * readings on state Buddhism and Chinese political thought influential in Japan, and * sections on women's education, medieval innovations in the uses of history, and laws and precepts of the medieval warrior houses. Together, the selections shed light on the development of Japanese civilization in its own terms, without reference to Western parallels, and will continue to assist generations of students and lay readers in understanding Japanese culture.
Location: Mugar Memorial Library Stacks (DS821 .S68 2001 )Publication Date: 2001- Through Japanese Eyes by Japan's story is an extraordinary one in the modern world. It emerged from centuries of isolation, openly embracing many foreign ideas while retaining its key cultural values, to dominate first its neighbors militarily and then the world economically. That story is told here by letting the Japanese speak for themselves through autobiography, fiction, poetry, newspaper and magazine articles, letters, diaries, and historical documents. Thoroughly revised, this new edition of a classic work first published over two decades ago, does not try to explain Japan through "expert" analyses by outside observers. Instead it attempts to recreate the reality of everyday life through Japanese eyes.Location: Mugar Memorial Library Stacks (DS806 .M537 1994 )Publication Date: 1994
A Concise History of Japan by
To this day, Japan's modern ascendancy challenges many assumptions about world history, particularly theories regarding the rise of the west and why the modern world looks the way it does. In this engaging new history, Brett L. Walker tackles key themes regarding Japan's relationships with its minorities, state and economic development, and the uses of science and medicine. The book begins by tracing the country's early history through archaeological remains, before proceeding to explore life in the imperial court, the rise of the samurai, civil conflict, encounters with Europe, and the advent of modernity and empire. Integrating the pageantry of a unique nation's history with today's environmental concerns, Walker's vibrant and accessible new narrative then follows Japan's ascension from the ashes of World War II into the thriving nation of today. It is a history for our times, posing important questions regarding how we should situate a nation's history in an age of environmental and climatological uncertainties.
Location: Mugar Memorial Library Stacks (DS835 .W333 2015 )Publication Date: 2015- Japan: a Country Study by Understand a particular foreign country through dynamic descriptions and analyses of its historical, social, environmental, economic, governmental, political, and national security systems and institutions. Particular attention is devoted to the people who make up the society, their origins, beliefs, interests, and their attitudes towards their social system and political order. Each study is written by a multidisciplinary team of social scientists. This series is a recognized standard in the field.Location: OnlinePublication Date: 1994
