This book deals chronologically with the history of writing in Japan, a subject which spans a period of 2,000 years, beginning with the transmission of writing from China in about the first or second century AD, and concluding with the use of written Japanese with computers. Topics dealt with include the adoption of Chinese writing and its subsequent adaptation in Japan, forms of writing employed in works such as the Kojiki and Man'yoshu, development of the kana syllabaries, evolution of mixed character-kana orthography, historical kana usage, the rise of...

This volume offers a reconstruction of the Proto-Ainu language based on the comparative method and internal reconstruction. The book is divided into three parts, the first is dedicated to the reconstruction of Proto-Ainu phonology (vocalism, consonantism, and prosody), the second represents a vocabulary of reconstructed Proto-Ainu lexical items, and the third deals with the problem of the genetic affiliation of the Ainu language. This problem has been approached in the present study from the point of view of the systematic comparisons of reconstructions, not the straight comparisons of the...

The present volume documents the postwar history of United States scholarship on Japan. A careful selection of North American scholars under the general editorship of Helen Hardacre (Reischauer Institute Professor of Japanese Religions and Society at Harvard University) shows that a range of factors have directed Japanese studies in the United States since 1945. Among these factors are social and political change in Japan and the United States, shifts in dominant scholarly concerns about Japan, and changing evaluations of area studies.
The work consists of twelve essays in a wide variety...

An analysis of the phenomenon of the Japanese adopting Western technology but resisting foreign domination during Meiji Japan,
at the hand of the formative period of the Japanese Imperial Mint. The author thereby offers a prime historical study on the interaction between the Japanese government and the West, and its underlying sentiments.
Examining the governmental reforms along Western lines, the transfer of Western technology and the hiring of foreign experts, it is examined how, at the Imperial Mint, this process was wholely dominated by the British. Focusing on the role of the...

The Sino-Japanese war is one of the most important links in the development of the modern Far East. A Dutch Spy in China offers a selection from the reports written by a Dutch colonel at the request of the General Staff of the Royal Netherlands Indies Army. After his retirement colonel De Fremery joined the group of Western military specialists who were helping Chiang Kai Shek in his efforts to modernize the Nationalist Chinese armed forces. Having acted in an advisory capacity for several years, De Fremery resigned but continued to live in China. Mounting anxiety in the East-Indies...

The early twentieth century Shirakaba ('White Birch') movement's later involvement with prewar Japanese nationalism has hitherto caused especially Western scholars to neglect its major significance. Shirikaba was created by graduates of the aristocratic Gakushuin ('Peers' School') in reaction against the dominant naturalism of contemporary Japanese literature. Though at first seeking ideological and cultural models in Europe, Shirakaba writers soon developed an increasing sense of their own Japaneseness. The first part of this volume chronicles the birth of this literary...

This well-illustrated work is the first attempt to bridge the gap between several specialized discourses concerning Japanese theatre. Central are problems of scholarly and practical reception of Japanese theatre forms in the West. The essays by a careful selection of internationally well-reputed scholars range widely through Japanese theatre, from the ancient to the postmodern, or, one might say, from kagura to angura. It deals with reception of Japanese theatre in the West, the treatment of the body in stage art and drama, Western influence, the impact of Japanese theatre...

In this collection on the Kyoto School of Philosophy, the author offers the reader Tanabe's religious philosophy, but also, and for the first time, his philosophy of nature and ontology. It is not only on individuum, society, and humankind, but also on the logical structure of Tanabe's thinking, and aspects such as nature, beauty, matter, contemplation, practice, politics, religion, science, history, eternity, etcetera. A highly original work, the more as the reader becomes acquainted with Ozaki's own creative synthetic view of the main problems of Christian-Buddhist theological, resp....