Nostalgia and Representations of Asia in Japan
Last year I wrote an article entitled Losing the Soul of Japan which was posted on the excellent weblog Chanpon. In the article I made some comments on the topi...
Category: Cultural
Cultural history.
Summer Reading Note: Ninja
I’ve finished Stephen Turnbull’s Ninja: the True Story of Japan’s Secret Warrior Cult, and I have good news for current and prospective gradua...
Dewey In Japan
Naoko Saito takes John Dewey’s visits to Japan as a starting place for questions about “Education for Global Understanding” [registration requ...
Renaissance Japan
Epochal analogies are some of the trickiest traps in our historical discourse. Whether it’s the Medieval v. Feudal snake pit or the quicksand of finely gr...
The Gateless Gate Online
Here is the gateway to The Gateless Gate. Sorry, I couldn’t resist. But it’s a real treasure of a document, and a very nicely done site. Granted, mu...
Farewell, Soseki
I’m going to miss Natsume Soseki. I know, he’s been dead for a long time (are there any plans in the works for centennial editions or celebrations, ...
Why I love classical literature
From Yoshida Kenkō’s Tsurezuregusa, aka Essays in Idleness (Stephen Carter translation in McCullough’s Classical Japanese Prose, p. 416) 189 Today y...
Japanese Pride and Influence
If you’ve studied Japan for even a few years, it becomes clear that Japanese are very sensitive about Nobel prizes. They haven’t won a lot of them, ...