Sharing for a friend: "Spot was a beloved puppy who brought so much joy to everyone around him. Sadly, he passed away after a brave fight against cancer. Let’s honor his memory by supporting the Humane Society of Southern Arizona, where he found love."
Last week my beloved baby and emotional support Spot crossed the rainbow bridge, shortly after being diagnosed with gastrointestinal lymphoma. This memorial fundraiser is for the Human Society of Southern Arizona where we adopted him from.
www.gofundme.com/f/supporting...
And just like that, Netflix stole Alice in Borderland using the same trick they did with Squid Game—moving the stage to LA. Shameless.
RJL Season Five is here!
In this episode, we look at bullying in Japanese literature.
-Bullying in Japanese schools + the Japanese workplace
-Examples in Japanese novels.
-Mizuki Tsujimura and her novel Lonely Castle in the Mirror, trans Philip Gabriel
Transcript on the episode page.
😱😱 forgot to take photos….
Students were so impressed they were all 🤩🤩 You’ll be their role model for a long time
JOB: Assistant Professor in South/Southeast Asian Religions (w/ focus on Hindu Traditions, defined BROADLY) in my department at the University of San Diego (PLEASE SHARE WIDELY).
Apply here: jobs.sandiego.edu/cw/en-us/job...
New issue of the Journal of Japanese Studies is out! Highlights include articles on kanpu masatsu, war photography, empire paranoia, Italian-Japanese children's lit, Seidensticker’s style, and a bonus piece on Black Rain and ritual. Don’t miss it!
Never post unpublished materials on such sites. Doing so not only disqualifies the manuscript for publication in a journal or volume, but it means your work is unprotected and can be poached by anyone with access to that site.
It’s my birthday! If you happen to want to support RJL for the occasion and you live in North America, you can buy *yourself* a book through our Bookshop.
May I humbly recommend Uketsu’s Strange Pictures (trans Jim Rion), one of my 2025 favorites?
Thank you for sharing 💚
Highlight of the semester: randomly found the first edition of Bushido that was only sold in Japan from 1905 in the Oxy library!
Folks in Santa Barbara and LA won't want to miss this awesome opportunity!
A screencap of the introductory text for the webpage "East Asia-related Job market Data in Progress (2024-2025)," which showcases job data information in East Asian Studies.
20 new job ads in East Asian Studies for 2024-2025. See details of this week's postings below or visit the filter database to search. 🌏📊 Now 908 entries. prcurtis.com/projects/job...
A message to grad students struggling to conduct archival research in light of travel issues/censorship/everything:
I digitize religiously and I'm sitting on 1000s of pages of scanned docs - mostly related to WWII - that I want to share. If you're at all curious, email me!
Some highlights:
Professor friends: Everyone should read this. Also, we must understand the importance of us collectively resisting anything and everything that is unjust. www.chronicle.com/article/what...
Fun day in class where we printed from a woodblock carved by yours truly that totally looks terrible but somehow worked!
Scholars at Risk is seeking help with its Volunteer Proofreader Initiative—if you can, please donate some of your time to assist displaced scholars embarking on job searches in new academic environments.
Had a fun day with my students at the special collections showing off my humble little collection. Turns out our library had this gem: a perfectly preserved double sided hangi of 四書字引, with a page printed from one of the sides!!
🗃️ In this post James Morris introduces different tools developed by ROIScodh (ROIS-DS Centre for Open Data in the Humanities)🏺and #DHII for helping to decipher Japanese #seals ⛩️ #篆書体 #印鑑 #蔵書印 #Stamps #japan #japanese #language #digitaltools #digitalhumanities
digitalorientalist.com/2025/02/25/d...
New book: "Japanese Literary Theories: An Anthology," ed. Irina Holca (Lexington Books). English translation of a volume originally edited by Ōura Yasusuke.
rowman.com/ISBN/9781666...
Check out my review of Junko Takase’s May You Have Delicious Meals (trans Morgan Giles) in @asianreviewofbooks.bsky.social)
“From an outsider’s perspective, it’s clear that the real problem is the company’s—Japan’s… perhaps the capitalist world’s—unrealistic expectations of its workforce…”
Listen to Jaqueline Berndt talk about her new book, The Cambridge Companion to Manga and Anime, on @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social. This volume offers perspectives on form and mediality of Japanese manga and anime, providing inspiration for further studies.
newbooksnetwork.com/the-cambridg...
CFP for an edited collection: “Japanese Video Games and Critiques of the Western Aesthetic Tradition.” call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/02/...
If interested, send abstract (300 words) & CV to DA Hall & Austin Anderson (japanesegamestudies@gmail.com) by 31 March 2025. Please share!
Full time professorship in Japanese studies at Université libre de Bruxelles in Belgium.
English here: cwfront.ulb.ac.be/greffe/modul...
En français ici: cwfront.ulb.ac.be/greffe/modul...
Final page (verso of folio 30) of Edo period woodblock printed book, beginning at right with artist's name (Utagawa Kunisada 歌川国貞) and below it the author's (Ryūtei Tanehiko 柳亭種彦). Then at the top an illustration of a fan with a picture of a yourn woman on it, and below a kimono spread out to show its felicitous design of turtles, pines and bamboo with a stream as background. Among other text on the two illustrations, highlighted by me in blue are the calligrapher, Michitomo 道友, and two carvers: at right Okada Rihachi 岡田利八, responsible for the first 15 folios, and at left Katō Risuke 加藤利助, responsible for the latter 15. The printer/publisher Tsuruya Kiemon 鶴屋喜右衛門 is also credited via the crane mon 紋 on the kimono, highlighted by me and connected to the printer's full information on the colophon, where a design similar to the mon is also used.
It's always interesting to see who is credited in a commercial creative work, and Edo period gōkan 合巻 are no exception--publisher, writer, and artist are pretty standard, but sometime you get a final page like this: the calligrapher and two separate carvers, one for each volume, are also listed...
You do NOT have to speak to ICE without a JUDICIAL warrant. If they attempt to enter your home or your workplace, ask for a warrant. Sometimes they will try to use other, non qualifying paperwork. They need a warrant.
(2/3)
“But which edition did you read” “but did you read all the editions” “ but which one is the official version”
Peter Kornicki 2025 Printing Technologies and Book Production in Seventeenth-Century Japan @ doi.org/10.1017/9781... (available for free until 12 Feb! 🙏)
Finishing the first week of the new semester and reflecting on my latest #NewBooksNetwork interview. @mimirellaz.bsky.social went deep into Japan's #mystery tradition to talk about boy detectives & economic malaise. Fascinating stuff!