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The Japanese “Poetic Immortals”
A review of Remembrance(s) of Immortals Past: Kasen as Memory and Polemic in Japanese Court Poetry, by LeRon James Harrison. The study of the nature and formation of memory in literature has received...
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“Sunappu” Photography in Japan
A review of Sunappu: A Genre of Japanese Photography, 1930-1980, by Yoshiaki Kai. Yoshiaki Kai’s compelling dissertation examines the development of so-called sunappu photography in Japanese visual...
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The Unstable Fiction of Ihara Saikaku
A review of “No Barrier Between High and Low”: Love, Ethics, Status and Style in the Fiction of Ihara Saikaku, by David James Gundry. The fiction of Ihara Saikaku, with its dazzling wordplay, rich...
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The Five Great Space Repository Bodhisattvas
A review of The Five Great Space Repository Bodhisattvas: Lineage, Protection and Celestial Authority in Ninth-Century Japan, by Hillary Eve Pedersen. Hillary Pedersen’s dissertation presents an...
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The East Asia Image Collection, Lafayette College
A review of The East Asia Image Collection (Skillman Library Special Collections, Lafayette College). Several recent studies of Japanese imperialism have interrogated ephemeral sources such as picture...
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The Regulation of Popular Songs in Modern Japan
A review of Unpopular Music: The Politics of Mass Culture in Modern Japan, by Hiromu Nagahara. Recent scholarly work on state-society relations and the regulation of popular culture in Japan from the...
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Fascism and Japanese War Paintings
A review of Envisioning Fascist Space, Time, and Body: Japanese Painting during the Fifteen-Year War (1931-1945), by Asato Ikeda. This is a bold dissertation that not only engages with difficult and...
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Tokyo National Museum Research & Information Center
A review of the Tokyo National Museum Research and Information Center (東京国立博物館資料館), Tokyo, Japan. I was first introduced to the Resource and Information Center of the Tokyo National Museum shortly...
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Morishima Churyo (1756-1810) and Late-Edo Fiction
A review of The World Beyond the Walls: Morishima Chūryō (1756-1810) and the Development of Late Edo Fiction, by William Fleming. William Fleming’s dissertation uses the writings of Morishima Chūryō...
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Science for God’s Sake
Science for God’s Sake: Three Archival Reviews - Salvation Army Research Room (救世軍研究室), Tokyo, Japan [website] - Archives of the Episcopal Church, Austin, Texas, United States [website] - Salvation...
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Evangelical Organizations and Tuberculosis in Japan
A review of The Exponent of Breath: The Role of Foreign Evangelical Organizations in Combating Japan’s Tuberculosis Epidemic of the Early Twentieth Century, by Elisheva Perelman. In this dissertation...
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Archives on the Allied Occupation of Japan
A review of the Gordon W. Prange Collection, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, United States of America. The Gordon W. Prange Collection at the University of Maryland in College Park is...
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Sarin & Memory in Postwar Japan
A review of Sarin Traces: Memory Texts and Practices in Postwar Japan, 1995-2010, by Mark Aaron Pendleton. Mark Pendleton’s dissertation throws light on the aftermath of the 1995 Tokyo subway gassing...
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Ideology of Rice & Silk in Early Modern Japan
A review of Picturing Rice Agriculture and Silk Production: Appropriation and Ideology in Early Modern Japanese Painting, by Shalmit Bejarano. Shalmit Bejarano’s dissertation offers an interesting...
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Mass Culture in Interwar Japan
A review of Creating Mass Culture in Interwar Japan, by Amy Bliss Marshall. Amy Marshall’s dissertation sheds much-needed light on the birth and development of what were arguably the two most...
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The Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves
A review of A Reception History of the Man’yōshū, by Fusae Ekida. Most readers of this review will be familiar with the Man’yōshū 万葉集 (c. 785), the oldest and largest extant collection of...
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Japanese Visions of Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis”
A review of Saving Metropolis: Body and City in the Metropolis Tales, by Lawrence Bird. Film and architecture share much in common: both are public, capital-intensive art forms, both are inherently...
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Records of Allied Operational & Occupation Headquarters WWII
A review of the Records of Allied Operational and Occupation Headquarters, World War II, National Archives and Records Administration. College Park, MD, United States American researchers specializing...
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“Gaijin” Others in Japanese Manga, 1930s-1950s
A review of Gaijin: Cultural Representations through Manga, 1930s-1950s, by Karl Ian Uy Cheng Chua. Karl Chua’s dissertation makes an important contribution at the intersection of studies of modern...
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Fantasies of the Real in Early Modern Japan
A review of Fantasies of the Real: Illustrated Gazetteers in Early Modern Japan, by Robert Dale Goree. Robert Goree’s dissertation offers a comprehensive study of meisho zue, the illustrated guides to...
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