Category: Japan
Breaking News: WWII won’t go away
OK, that’s not all that surprising at this point. But I was a bit taken aback when three articles all about separate aspects of WWII in Japan showed up in...
A New Constitution for Japan?
I love constitutions. They’re great texts for teaching, they are fantastic touchstones for discussion and, of course, they are crucial to the definition o...
Iris Chang’s Death
Iris Chang is dead, apparently by her own hand as a result of depression. Her work on the Nanjing Massacre brought her fame and attention, of all kinds. She was...
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...
自己紹介: Thomas Ekholm
My name is Thomas Ekholm and is currently a Ph.D. Candidate at Göteborg (Gothenburg) University, Sweden. I have a masters degree in Japanese and equivalent of a...
Minamata Justice
Japan’s Supreme Court ordered the government to pay compensation to additional victims of one of the most egregious and troubling cases of environmental i...
Self Intro: Kim Youngsoo
はじめまして、ヨンスと申します。 皆さんは英語で書かれていますが、私は主に日本語でたまに英語で書くと思います。もし韓国に関することでしたら、韓国語でも書くつもりです。 簡単に自己紹介をします。 現在東京大学 総合文化研究科 地域文化研究に所属しています。今年は修士2年目なので、12月までは忙しいと思います。その後本格的...
Why did the Mongols Attack Hakata Bay Twice?
I’ve been doing Japanese history for fifteen years, now, and Chinese history for a decade, and I’ve never figured out why the Mongols, after their f...
Translation Prize and Gatekeeper Issues
A colleague of mine, Prof. Larry Rogers, just won the 2004 Keene Center translation award for his book of translations of modern stories about Tokyo neighborhoo...
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, ...
Joint Press Conference Predictions: Little Asia
It’s not a debate, in any meaningful sense of the word, unless they break the rules. It’s a joint press conference, and the only thing that makes it...
Self-Introduction: Luck and Curiousity
My name is Jonathan Dresner, and I consider myself a very lucky man. I had no particular interest in Japan or history in High School, until I spent a year in Na...