Studies in Japanese Culture: Tradition and ExperimentEdited by Joseph Roggendorf
Monographs (1963) pp. 1–276
The present volume has been compiled to commemorate the establishment, fifty years ago, of Sophia University. Founded in 1913 by a group of Jesuits, the University has grown from unassuming beginnings until it is now considered one of the more respected institutions of higher learning in the country.
The concern for Japanese culture always was an essential part of the Sophia tradition. The founder, the late Fr. Hermann Hoffmann, S.J., disliked to hear the University classified as a “mission school”–a term then current in Japan to designate the Christian educational institutions mostly established during the Meiji era –, because the expression could too easily lead to misunderstandings. The University was to be a place to search for truth in a spirit of mutual tolerance and respect and, accordingly, of sympathy for the culture of Japan and, the mode of thinking of the Japanese. In this spirit, the japanological journal Monumenta Nipponica was founded which the University has been publishing for the last twenty-five years, and in this spirit the present volume has also been compiled.
1963. 276 pages.
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