Shin Buddhism is often considered to be the tradition that most radically disassociates itself from Shintō from the very beginning of its history. This is evident in one of the mosRead More →
Various entrepreneurs experimented with producing cultured pearls from the early 1890s, but it was only after the First World War that Japan began to export round specimens on any Read More →
There is a surprising similarity in the enormous success the novels of Murakami Haruki and Elena Ferrante are enjoying on a global scale. The narratives of both authors are built oRead More →
Kim Taegŏn is usually remembered as the first Korean-born Catholic priest and a martyr. A product of three centuries of Catholic missions in East Asia, he stood as a tremendous figRead More →
Initially, the so-called “Japanese myths” were a textual product of the Kojiki (712) and the Nihon Shoki (720). In the course of the centuries, these myths were altered, re-writ-teRead More →
Scholarship has rarely, if ever, treated Japan’s seven medi-eval historiographic Mirrors as a set. The Great Mirror, The New Mirror, and The Clear Mirror have typically been talkedRead More →
From the late nineteenth century until at least the end of the Second World War and the immediate postwar period-in a period marked by uncertainty and rapid development-East Asia wRead More →
At sometime between 1716 and 1729, the Osaka publish-er Shibukawa Seiemon published a box-set anthology of twenty-three otogizōshi-works of short medieval fiction-which he titled “Read More →
Japanese medieval musical treatises often provide engaging legends concerning the origins of bugaku suites, the graceful dances at the core of the repertory of Japanese “elegant muRead More →
