Images of Late Medieval Disease Critters and Meiji Toys
Japanese historical visual materials are becoming available online in increasing quantities and variety, as seen in two posts from the last week from Pink Tenta...
Author: Morgan Pitelka
Conference at the Huntington Library
I’ve been wanting to write about a wonderful local resource, the Huntington, for a long time, but couldn’t figure out how to work it into a post. It...
“Early Modern” Periodization
I participated in a symposium on February 1st hosted by the USC-Huntington Early Modern Institute, on the topic of early modern periodization in East Asia. It w...
Asian Studies Toolbar
A recent exchange on H-Asia mentioned the Asian Studies Toolbar, which I first read about in March of last year when the maker, John Noyce (“a librarian t...
2007: Japan Top Ten Year in Review
OK, fellow bloggers and Japan-watchers, I’d like to propose that we participate in the mass hysteria that is the year-end-review list. What media stories ...
Japanese History Workshop, Part II
I recently returned from a week in Sydney, Australia, and am happy to report that it has incredible Southeast Asian food and fresh seafood, amazing parks, and t...
Japanese History Workshop, The University of Sydney, Dec. 5-7, 2007
I’m headed on Sunday to Sydney to take part in an annual workshop on Japanese history. This is my first opportunity to travel to Australia and I’m e...
Calendar converter
Some of you may know about this tool already, but I just discovered Matthias Schemm’s wonderful NengoCalc, an online or offline converter of Japanese and ...
Update on Honnôji
Professor Matthew Stavros of the University of Sydney (seen in the third photo below) wrote in response to my post on the discovery of roof tiles from Honnôji a...
Nobunaga’s death spot, Honnôji, discovered
Those of you who are, like me, interested in that brief era in the late 16th and early 17th centuries known as the Momoyama period (or the Azuchi-Momoyama perio...
Discover Nikkei
I’ve been working on a project with the Japanese American National Museum for my seminar “Japanophilia,” and have gotten to know their amazing...
The Trials and Tribulations of Teaching
A friend who teaches American and sometimes Asian history courses sent me the following enquiry, which she received via email from one of her American history s...
Photos of Japan, 1951
One of my former students and her boyfriend have been scanning in old photos, and they happened upon some gems taken by the young man’s grandfather when h...
Japanophilia
I am starting to work on my courses for next semester and am getting excited to teach one of my favorites: an upper-level seminar called “Japanophilia: Or...