When translating, leave currency in the original units
I’m using Ivan Morris’ translation of Saikaku’s The Life of an Amorous Woman and other Writings this semester1, but one thing which is bugging...
Category: Pedagogy
Discussion about teach history in the classroom and beyond.
Syllabus Query: 18th Century Japan
I’m teaching my Japan Since 1700 course next semester for the first time. I’ve taught Japan since 1800 and 1868; I’ve taught Japan 1600-1900 a...
Another Disappointment
I always get a little nervous when a world history textbook cites details about Japanese history which I’ve never heard of before. I’m still mostly ...
New Media and Japanese Studies
WARNING: those of you interested in Japanese studies but not in internet technologies, new media, and the whole question of how digital learning does or doesn&#...
A disappointment
I’ve been enjoying the textbook I’m using for World History this fall: Felipe Fernandez-Armesto’s The World: A History. It covers the entire w...
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, ...
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...
Akutagawa the Pacifist
Japan Focus has expanded its mission one more time, this time to include new literary translations! They’ve published a Jay Rubin translation of an Akutag...
Reflecting on a semester
We’ve been talking about our syllabi for a while here at the Frogs, but we haven’t done a lot of post-semester commentary. I had two Asia courses th...
In honor of finals
I was going through some old papers last month and came across a collection of student exam bloopers and exclamations (you’ll see) from what was — I...
The course we all have to teach
Alan Baumler, my colleague from next door has sent along this “call to arms” As some of our regular readers may remember, there is a Frog tradition ...
Trying not to whine….
It’s syllabus time here at FrogInAWell. I’ve got a bit of an overload this semester, and I’m trying to be really good-humored about it, but I ...
Sharing Syllabi: Japanese Women
I saw the immortals overlooking the volleyball court on our recent visit to the Kona side of the island, and felt an affinity. The Waikoloa Hilton is like that....
Academia/Books and Articles/China-Japan/Cultural/Current/Recent Events/English/General/Japan/Literature/Memory/Pedagogy/昭和/江戸
Laughter and Tears on the Charles
A book I’ve been waiting for for a long time is finally almost out [PDF]. Adam Kern, an old friend from graduate school, has been working on Edo-period hu...
China-Japan Historical Struggle Reaches MIT
History, despite its wrenching pain, Cannot be unlived, and if faced With courage, need not be lived again. — Maya Angelou, Inaugural Poem I had planned t...