Contents
Institutions
(All external links open in a new window)
Universities and research organizations
The home page of "America's leading institution dedicated to fostering understanding of Asia and communication between Americans and the people of Asian and the Pacific." The site is mostly given over to describing the Society's activities, including its programs, exhibitions, and publications. Otherwise it seems rather labyrinthine and hard to navigate, considering the content level.
The Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture
The site contains a relatively detailed Calendar of Events for the Center's activities, and a complete list of the winners of the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prizes for the Translation of Japanese Literature since 1979.
Duke University East Asian Collection: Japanese Studies Resources
The Japanese Literature Resources page to be found at this site offers a list of reference materials in nine basic research categories. While the main purpose is to catalogue those resources actually available at Duke, the information would serve as a useful starting point for anyone interested in conducting research on Japanese literature in the original language.
The International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken)
The English home page of the central institution for Japanese studies in Japan. The Center itself was established in 1987, and in 1992 the Department of Japanese Studies in the School of Cultural Studies of the Graduate University for Advanced Studies (yes, that is the name) was added. Searchable databases are available, several of which ask the user simply to provide an e-mail address but the most interesting of which (including the Database of Writings on Japan in Western Languages, the Database of Foreign Images of Japan, and the Database of Japanese Art) require registration and are limited to scholars.
The English home page of "the first specialist organization for international cultural exchange in Japan." An extensive listing of the Foundation's activities and programs is available, as are a number of Acrobat-formatted publications, including Japanese Book News and the Japan Foundation Newsletter.
The home page for "America's most respected source on Japan." The Japan Society advertises itself as providing "informative, innovative programming that is often available nowhere else in the country." Currently a briefly descriptive site with an up-to-date calendar of Society-sponsored events (both general and corporate). A re-designed, fully interactive Web site is promised for the near future.
The National Institute of Japanese Literature
This is the English home page of a research institute established by the Japanese government in 1972 to "comprehensively"l collect and study materials related to Japanese literature. There is not much available in English; the Japanese site offers access to a number of databases, including a public database of images of historical personages and an e-text database intended to contain the entire text of the older version of the Iwanami 100-volume series Nihon kotenbungaku taikei (registration is required, and development seems to have stopped in March 2006). A thorough site restructuring is in order before the site will be able to fulfill its true potential.
The Japanese Historical Map Collection
A digitalized collection of over 1,100 images of maps and books selected from among the approximately 2,300 maps contained in the Japanese Historical Map Collection at UC Berkeley's East Asian Library. The site is operated by the company that scanned the images. A standard browser may be used to view the maps, though "advanced software functionality" can be obtained by installing a Java-based browser available at the site. The quality of the images is excellent, but navigation and viewing are quite troublesome and not very intuitive.
Rather paltry in terms of English offerings, the National Diet Library does have a searchable online catalog of Japanese books acquired by the library since 1948 (approx. 2 million volumes) and Western-language books obtained since 1986 (approx. 200,000 volumes). English links are also provided for the Japanese-only Digital Library from the Meiji Era and the Rare Books Image Database. (searchable only in Japanese), the latter of which contains more than 20,000 images of Edo-period documents and woodblock prints. As of June 2006, the Digital Library from the Meiji Era contains PDF versions of 127,000 publications for which the copyright has expired (pages can be saved or printed out in 10-page increments), while there are 41,000 images from 874 titles available in the latter. It is an extraordinary online resource for those able to make use of it.
The Waseda University Library Catalog
The searchable online library catalog of Waseda University. Searching is possible by author, subject, title, keyword, and other methods, both in transliterated Japanese and in Western languages (for books written in those languages). A very convenient source of bibliographical data for Japanese publications.
Color photographs of Japanese costumes worn in major historical periods from Jomon to Meiji as displayed on the museum's life-sized dolls. Diagrams and detailed English descriptions (although somewhat labored) are provided. The museum itself, which opened in 1974, is located in Kyoto.
The Etsuko and Joe Price Collection
Selections from a private collection of over 500 paintings, primarily from the Edo period, arranged by artist, subject, and historical period, along with a sampling of images of contemporary netsuke.
The most fully developed English-language site among Japan's national museums. The highlight is "The Collection" itself, which, as the home page states, contains "detailed graphic and text introductions to over one hundred of the finest masterpieces in the Kyoto National Museum collection." There is also a searchable database of over 10,000 images of 3,200 objects or sets of objects, along with a useful page of links to other resources on Japanese art (including links to various museums around the world).
A brief introduction to a museum in Towada, Aomori Prefecture, with exhibits of materials related to the life and work of Nitobe Tsutō and, to a lesser extent, his son Jūjirō and grandson Nitobe Inazō.
A relatively modest selection of "collection highlights" from the museum's six exhibition rooms, accompanied by decent English explanations. A calendar of special exhibits is also provided. The Japanese version of the site contains complete lists of the exhibits on display in each room of the museum, which is located in Nagoya and calls itself the third-oldest privately endowed museum in Japan (founded in 1935). The museum now owns most of the extant sections of the Genji monogatari emaki (Picture Scroll of the Tale of Genji).
Here, according to the home page, "you can view some 500 of the various works of art and decorative art, archeological relics, and other cultural assets from the Tokyo National Museum collection," selectable by type or region. The English explanations are less detailed than those provided by the Kyoto National Museum.
Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum
The English home page of the Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum, founded in 1928. The museum itself -- a repository for a wide variety of theatrical materials from around the world -- is located on the campus of Waseda University in Tokyo, and admission is free. The site contains a brief English introduction to the museum and an enjoyable gallery of actor prints from the museum's collection, some with English explanations added.
Theaters and Other Institutions
The Digital Cultural Library (Bunka Degitaru Raiburarii)
A new and extraordinarily useful site -- currently available only in Japanese -- managed by the Japan Arts Council, the administrative arm of the National Theatre of Japan. The site makes available a complete historical listing of performances at all of the Japanese national theaters, a selection of photographs and other images, visual guides to makeup and performance, and (most impressively in my view) a thorough multimedia introduction to traditional Japanese music, complete with video demonstrations and explanations. The overdone graphics can be avoided in part by relying on the drop-down site menu on the main page, but be warned: navigation can become confusing. Still, an extraordinary source of information.
Shōchiku has recently created a Web site for kabuki that consolidates links to its main theaters, including the Kabukiza and the Shinbashi Enbujō in Tokyo, the Osaka Shōchikuza, and the Nanza in Kyoto. The site offers a Special Features menu that is worth browsing, although everything is in Japanese. The only English page provided is the one for the Kabukiza, and while it marks an improvement over the former Kabikaza page, it is amateurishly done (much of the English is inexcusable) and requires the installation of a Pulse Player to take advantage of the complete range of multimedia features.
A site managed by the Japan Arts Council that contains introductions in English to the traditional performing arts of Noh, Kyogen, Bunraku, and Kabuki. The sections on Bunraku and Noh and Kyogen are quite extensive, although heavily based on images and graphics, making navigation somewhat confusing and requiring a fair amount of clicking to read all of the text. The selection of video clips (in Flash format) is well worth viewing. The section on Kabuki is less polished and more cluttered, and the English is generally poor. The entire site would benefit from a thorough English proofrooding (even the front page contains a glaring typrographical error in "UNESCO's Intangible Cultual Heritage"), and rather than concentrate so heavily on visual impact, it would be advisable to give more thought to ease of navigation and general usability (the site map is actually the best way to get around). Once the site-design problem are addressed, this will be an indispensable resource.