About
Welcome to Monumenta Nipponica, a peer-reviewed international forum for research in Japanese studies. One of the oldest English-language academic journals in the field of Asian studies, Monumenta Nipponica carries original scholarly contributions on premodern and modern Japanese history, literature, art history, religion, thought, and society; translations of important Japanese literary and historical sources; and authoritative reviews of recent books on Japan.
Print subscriptions to the journal can be ordered directly from the Monumenta Nipponica office. Since volume 60 (2005), the journal has been available online through Project MUSE. The complete archive of back issues is also accessible via JSTOR.
MN is indexed by Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Bibliography of Asian Studies, CNKI Scholar, ERIH PLUS, Historical Abstracts, Index to the Study of Religions Online, MLA International Bibliography, and Scopus.
History
Monumenta Nipponica was founded at Sophia University in 1938 by Johannes B. Kraus (1892–1946), a professor of economics who later served as the first editor-in-chief. The journal has been continuously supported and published by the university ever since.
However, owing to the challenges posed by the wartime period and the immediate postwar years, the publication of Monumenta Nipponica was suspended between 1944 and 1950. The journal resumed in 1951 with Volume 7 and has since maintained its position as a leading peer-reviewed journal in the fields of Japanese and East Asian Studies.
From the beginning, Monumenta Nipponica has maintained its purpose to create and sustain a platform for scholars from a diverse range of nationalities and disciplines to share their ideas, as well as provide readers with up-to-date and original research. While early volumes—including articles, translations, and reviews—were printed in German and a variety of European languages, from volume 19 (1964), English has been the sole language of publication.
Since 1973, Monumenta Nipponica has received generous support from The Japan Foundation, which purchases copies of the journal and distributes them to institutions worldwide. Around 1999, the journal was selected for inclusion in JSTOR’s “Arts and Sciences I Collection,” further enhancing its global reach. Since 2005, Monumenta Nipponica has also been available online through Project MUSE.
Looking ahead, Monumenta Nipponica remains dedicated to fostering a diverse forum for the exchange of ideas and research. The journal continues to invite contributions from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives, encompassing all periods of Japanese history, from ancient to modern.
Following a long-standing tradition, Monumenta Nipponica also maintains its commitment to providing a platform for translations of Japanese sources and texts. As of 2025, several hundred such translations have appeared in the journal.
In March 2020, Monumenta Nipponica published the monograph, Monumenta Nipponica: Eighty Years and Counting, which traces the journal’s history from its inception to the present.
Current Advisory Board
- Lucia Dolce, SOAS University of London
- Torquil Duthie, University of California, Los Angeles
- C. Andrew Gerstle, SOAS University of London, Emeritus
- Helen Hardacre, Harvard University
- Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit, Freie Universität Berlin
- Annick Horiuchi, Université Paris Cité
- Seiji Lippit, University of California, Los Angeles
- Melissa McCormick, Harvard University
- Miyazaki Fumiko, Keisen University, Emerita
- Joshua S. Mostow, University of British Columbia
- Mark R. Mullins, University of Auckland
- Noriko Murai, Sophia University
- Nagao Naoshige, Sophia University
- Kate Wildman Nakai, Sophia University, Emerita
- Rajyashree Pandey, Goldsmiths, University of London
- Sven Saaler, Sophia University
- Franziska Seraphim, Boston College
- Shimazono Susumu, University of Tokyo, Emeritus
- Haruo Shirane, Columbia University
- Mark Teeuwen, University of Oslo
- Hitomi M. Tonomura, University of Michigan
- Dennis Washburn, Dartmouth College