The Asiatic Society of Japan

*Dr. Barak Kushner (Senior Lecturer in Modern Japanese History, Department of East Asian Studies at Cambridge University; Director of Studies at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, for Asian and Middle Eastern Studies)

Subject

"Rediscovering Our Past."

The Asiatic Society of Japan is in the closing stages of completing a long-term project to digitise its entire archive of publications and this event aims to introduce the archive to its members and to give some idea of the vast amount of scholarship it contains.

The ASJ’s archive is indeed immense, the first series alone comprising more than 20,000 pages. It contains articles by all the most important figures in Japan Studies, including James Hepburn, William G. Aston, Basil Hall Chamberlain, Ernest Satow, Herbert Norman, Edward Seidensticker and Donald Keene. It has been regrettable that up to now, relatively few scholars have been able to fully access such a valuable resource. Indeed, there are no complete sets of the Transactions available, although many institutions including the ASJ itself, the Bodleian Library, Oxford, the International House Library, Tokyo, and the Yale University Library have slightly incomplete sets. These last two institutions have generously allowed their volumes to be used to piece together the complete archive. In addition, Mr. Kodama has spent time over the past year researching the Yokohama Archives to find reports of ASJ meetings and transcripts of the early lectures, that didn’t appear in our own Transactions, from contemporary newspapers and associated Meiji era publications to add to the Society’s own publications archive.

At this lecture meeting, the four people who worked most closely on the project, Prof. Morton, Mr. Ring, Mr. Mathews and Mr. Kodama will talk about the experience of building the digital archive and introduce some of the things that they have discovered from it. Mr. Ring will talk about the different ways in which researchers can search the archive so they can gain maximum benefit from it. Mr. Mathews will briefly show examples of the challenges faced to locate or repair lost and damaged volumes from our heritage.

*In addition, Prof. Gluck and Dr. Kushner will speak remotely about the importance of the archive to themselves and to students of Japan Studies around the world.

Forthcoming Meeting

Monday, 2 April 2012: Prof. David Burleigh will speak on the Irish Poet James Cousins at the Residence of the Ambassador of Ireland.