2026-03-23
dept.sophia.ac.jp
MN 80:2 (2025) pp. 277–84 Excerpt For centuries, the formative role of the Chinese language in shaping Japan’s intellectual heritage has been well known. Yet the story of how Dutch—among several other Western languages—reshaped Japanese knowledge and culture remains less explored. In The Dutch Language in Japan (1600–1900), Christopher Joby offers an in-depth perspective on Japan’s adoption of Dutch and how it influenced early modern and modern society. muse.jhu.edu/pub/59/article/984608 muse.jhu.edu/pub/59/article/984608
2026-03-23
dept.sophia.ac.jp
MN 80:2 (2025) pp. 317–21 Excerpt Produced by BYU Academic both in print and as an open-access publication (available at https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/books/32), Discovery & Wonder provides a detailed examination of the Harry F. Bruning Collection at Brigham Young University (BYU).1 Originally conceived as a companion catalogue to the eponymous exhibition held at the Harold B. Lee Library from 2020 to 2021, this book displays a well-crafted structure that allows it to stand on its own as an engaging and valuable resource. Jack C. Stoneman and Aaron H. Skabelund guide readers through extensive holdings of Japanese materials, contextualizing these primary sources within their broader cultural and historical framework. The authors offer an in-depth history of the collection and, by spotlighting some of the most outstanding items, they provide a vivid glimpse into the remarkable breadth and depth of Japanese resources housed at BYU—printed books, manuscripts, maps, paintings, prints, and ephemera. The volume is intended for a wide readership. On the one hand, its analytical approach and scholarly description of the holdings make it particularly valuable for researchers and students of premodern, early modern, and modern Japan. On the other hand, its clear prose ensures that the content remains accessible to an audience of nonspecialists as well. muse.jhu.edu/pub/59/article/984615 muse.jhu.edu/pub/59/article/984615
2026-03-23
dept.sophia.ac.jp
MN 80:2 (2025) pp. 306–12 Excerpt The iconic sagely image of D. T. Suzuki (1890–1966; hereafter generally “Daisetz”) as a man of Zen and a bridge between East and West has earned him a central position in the history of modern Buddhism. However, both the existence and the remarkable yet tragic life of his adopted son Masaru Alan Suzuki (1916–1971), lyricist for the Japanese smash hit song “Tokyo Boogie-woogie” (1947), have until now been far less known to all but a limited circle of scholars and family acquaintances. muse.jhu.edu/pub/59/article/984613 muse.jhu.edu/pub/59/article/984613
2026-03-23
dept.sophia.ac.jp
MN 80:2 (2025) pp. 345–50 Excerpt What value do literature and popular culture have in a global crisis? One thing they offer is reassurance. While we may find ourselves cursed to live in “interesting times,” we do not live in unprecedented ones—others have been here before us, and at least some of them lived to tell the tale. As Mina Qiao notes in her introduction to The Coronavirus Pandemic in Japanese Literature and Popular Culture, “With the ‘unprecedented’ disruption of life and work at a global scale, people turn to the ‘precedent’ of literature [and popular culture] for enlightenment” (p. 5). muse.jhu.edu/pub/59/article/984621 muse.jhu.edu/pub/59/article/984621
2026-03-23
dept.sophia.ac.jp
MN 80:2 (2025) pp. 340–45 Excerpt Lay Zen in Contemporary Japan is a very interesting and important examination of a small but influential group of lay practitioners who participate in a modern reform movement known as the Humanistic Zen Society (Ningen Zen Kyōdan; hereafter referred to as Ningen Zen). Erez Joskovich’s detailed and thought-provoking analysis is based on years of participant observation fieldwork conducted primarily at one of the movement’s main Tokyo centers. Known as the Takuboku-dōjō, the center is located in the neighborhood of Yanaka just across the tracks from Nippori Station on the Yamanote train line; nearby is Tennōji, a capacious Tendai temple featuring a large Buddha statue and cemetery. As explained in chapter 1, which introduces the book as a whole, Joskovich spent three years at the dojo from 2009 to 2012, with additional visits taking place over the next half a decade. The book also makes excellent use of intricate yet critical textual studies concerning historical developments, current training techniques, and complex networks of social implications. Joskovich employs these materials in exploring the role that the beliefs and rituals of lay (koji) Zen have played within the rich context of recent Japanese Buddhist innovations and the impact they have had on both the shaping of individual lives and the reappropriation of diverse cultural customs. muse.jhu.edu/pub/59/article/984620 muse.jhu.edu/pub/59/article/984620
2026-02-11
dept.sophia.ac.jp
MN 80:1 (2025) pp. 125–30 muse.jhu.edu/pub/59/article/969410 muse.jhu.edu/pub/59/article/969410
2026-02-11
dept.sophia.ac.jp
MN 80:1 (2025) pp. 130–34 muse.jhu.edu/pub/59/article/969411 muse.jhu.edu/pub/59/article/969411
2026-02-11
dept.sophia.ac.jp
MN 80:1 (2025) pp. 134–40 muse.jhu.edu/pub/59/article/969412 muse.jhu.edu/pub/59/article/969412
2026-02-11
dept.sophia.ac.jp
MN 80:1 (2025) pp. 115–22 muse.jhu.edu/pub/59/article/969408 muse.jhu.edu/pub/59/article/969408
2026-02-11
dept.sophia.ac.jp
MN 80:1 (2025) pp. 2–47 Abstract The compiler of the poetry collection Hyakunin isshu, among the most famous works of Japanese literature, was long believed to be Fujiwara no Teika. Today, however, scholars broadly doubt this attribution, given substantial indications that Hyakunin isshu was itself a reworking of the earlier anthology Hyakunin shūka (in contrast, quite likely Teika’s compilation). The present article revisits these origins, starting with the evidence tying Teika to Hyakunin shūka but examining primarily that prior collection’s impetus in a certain commission undertaken by Teika for Utsunomiya Renshō: a request to personally produce ornamental poem cards (shikishigata) for the shōji (sliding screens) of Renshō’s own villa. As destined recipient for such a gift of waka art, this Renshō—head of the Utsunomiya clan, prestigious political and religious figure, father-in-law to Teika’s son—represents a critical context for the creation of Hyakunin shūka/Hyakunin isshu, one often underappreciated in previous research. Focusing on Renshō to address this neglect, the article investigates in detail parallel examples of screen poetry gifted to Renshō, specifically two further sets from Teika and his son, respectively. muse.jhu.edu/pub/59/article/969404 muse.jhu.edu/pub/59/article/969404
2025-04-01
dept.sophia.ac.jp
MN 79:2 (2024) pp. 267–74 Excerpt Scholarship on the history of the Christian mission in Japan has slowly come to encompass a wider range of fields, perspectives, and critiques utilizing primary sources from both European and non-European actors and focusing also on the inner motivations and conflicts harbored by these various actors. This enriched body of sources makes possible a more detailed analysis than in the past of the relationship between the global and the local, and of the social relations between individuals from different backgrounds, genders, religions, political views, and birthplaces, thus allowing a more nuanced approach to understanding the past—an approach far removed from hegemonic anachronistic or idealized points of view. The newest book by Jesuit M. Antoni J. Ucerler, one of the most active and eminent scholars in the study of the Christian mission in Asia, offers insights in this direction but also much more. The Samurai and the Cross: The Jesuit Enterprise in Early Modern Japan in a way retells the history of the Jesuit mission in Japan. The book describes how foreign missionaries with their respective cultural and educational backgrounds met, clashed, and adapted to Japanese culture and society in the specific context of civil war. It sheds light on how Jesuits justified their actions within the legal framework of the period while also defending their ideals in matters of war, conversions, and their own and others’ survival. muse.jhu.edu/pub/59/article/952781 muse.jhu.edu/pub/59/article/952781
2025-04-01
dept.sophia.ac.jp
MN 79:2 (2024) pp. 274–78 Excerpt The early modern Japan and nineteenth-century volumes for the original Cambridge History of Japan series, published more than three decades ago, were essential research and teaching library resources for a young scholar transitioning to graduate studies in the early 1990s. While too expensive to own personally, these important volumes became markedly easier to utilize once online versions were released in the 2000s. That development permitted students of Japanese history to begin systematically working through individual volumes and indeed the entire series without fear of hefty library fines (a feat I last performed just prior to the pandemic). muse.jhu.edu/pub/59/article/952782 muse.jhu.edu/pub/59/article/952782