Studying Keene’s Emperor Meiji
Much of my Meiji Japan course is taken up with Donald Keene’s Emperor of Japan: Meiji and his World, 1852-1912. It’s been a pretty good experience, ...
Category: Japan
A New Theory of Japanese History: Robots
At No Fear of the Future, Jess Nevins has a new theory of modern Japanese history [via]: It’s clear, isn’t it? When Japan makes a new robot, a white person stea...
The race between the Totman and the Hane
Like most teachers, I have a tense relationship with textbooks: too much of one thing, not enough of another; too old, or updated annually; too hard to read, or...
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...
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...
Macroeconomics never gives you more than an overview
Stephen Roach, Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia has an op-ed in the New York Times (UPDATE: reprinted in Japan Focus) arguing that Japan’s post-bubble rece...
“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...
AHA 2008: a very limited perspective
It was a very busy conference for me, but my meetings didn’t leave me a lot of time for panels.1 None, in fact, except for our own, which was great fun. I...
Fortune Cookie History
A grad student from Kanagawa University may have cracked the great riddle of Asian cuisine: the origin of the Fortune Cookie! As the NY Times reports, the origi...
Fortune Cookie History
A grad student from Kanagawa University may have cracked the great riddle of Asian cuisine: the origin of the Fortune Cookie! As the NY Times reports, the origi...
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...
Asian History Carnival #18
Somehow the items that have caught my eye since the last Asia Carnival are more cultural than historical – future carnivals will right the balance. But culture,...
Great Moments in International Journalism
Philip J. Cunningham at Informed Comment Global Affairs has a great post about Chinese State TV and their Dialogue commentary program. I’m just going to e...