Monumenta Nipponica is pleased to announce that MN 77:2 is now available in print as well as online at MUSE. We hope you enjoy the issue!

MN 77:1 Online and in Print
MN 77:1 is now available in print and online at Project MUSE. In line with MN’s mission to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and presentation of recent research on Japan, this issue’s articles delve into a diverse range of topics: from women poets, to early Christian activities in Japan and Edo urban history. Additionally, the twenty book reviews feature such varied themes as the history of literacy, women in student protests, horror films, and the pharmaceutical industry.

Note that the shipment of print copies to subscribers in certain countries may be delayed because of disruptions in airmail service. We are monitoring the situation closely and will ship all print issues out in as timely a manner as possible. Please contact the MN office if you require further information.

32nd EAJRS Conference
The European Association of Japanese Resource Specialists (EAJRS) conference “Documentary and Visual Resources on Japan in the Wider Asian Context” is scheduled to take place 14–17 September in Lisbon, Portugal. For more information, see https://www.eajrs.net/.
Bettina Gramlich-Oka looks forward to attending in person and will be available to meet and discuss potential projects. She can be contacted at gramlich-oka@sophia.ac.jp.

EAJS Workshop
On 6–8 October 2022, Monumenta Nipponica chief editor Bettina Gramlich-Oka will participate in a European Association for Japanese Studies (EAJS) workshop for early-career scholars at the Asien-Orient-Institut (AOI), Universität Zürich, directed by Prof. Dr. David Chiavacci and Prof. Dr. Raji Steineck. Gramlich-Oka will lead a segment on historical, philological, and literary research in the context of a Japan studies journal.

On 1 April we bid a fond farewell to our long-serving managing editor Esther Sanders and welcomed in Stefan Grace to take up the position. We wish them both the best in their new careers.

MN 76:2, available online and in print, has been shipped to most subscribers but please note international shipping to some European countries is still delayed due to disruptions in airmail services.

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, JSTOR announced a program allowing participating institutions—those licensing some, but not all, archive and primary source collections—to gain access to all collections at no additional cost. This program to support scholarship amid the challenges posed by the pandemic was due to expire on 30 June 2021, but has been extended for a third year, through 30 June 2023. Details are available here: https://about.jstor.org/news/serving-our-community-in-difficult-timesa-letter-from-kevin-guthrie/

MN 76:2 is now available online and in print. The shipment of print copies to subscribers in certain countries will be delayed because of disruptions in airmail service. As of 10 March the countries affected are Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom. We are monitoring the situation closely and will ship all print issues out in as timely a manner as possible. Please contact the MN office if you require further information.

The AAS 2022 Annual Conference is scheduled to take place 24–27 March in Honolulu, Hawaii, and online. For more information, see https://www.eventscribe.net/2022/AAS/.

Bettina Gramlich-Oka looks forward to attending in person and will be available to meet and discuss potential projects. She can be contacted at gramlich-oka@sophia.ac.jp.

Chief editor Bettina Gramlich-Oka will participate in a symposium on the translation of historical concepts and terminology, to take place on Zoom on 11 December 2021.

This event is being sponsored by the Historiographical Institute, The University of Tokyo, in collaboration with the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science’s Program for Constructing Data Infrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences.

For full details and registration, visit https://twitter.com/UTokyo_HI/status/1460098718221225986.

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, JSTOR announced a program allowing participating institutions—those licensing some, but not all, archive and primary source collections—to gain access to all collections at no additional cost. This program to support scholarship amid the challenges posed by the pandemic was due to expire on 30 June 2021, but has been extended for another year, through 30 June 2022. Details are available here: https://about.jstor.org/covid19/?utm_source=jstor&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=dsp_j_JHR_C19_07_2020

The 16th International Conference of the European Association for Japanese Studies (EAJS2021; online, 24–28 August 2021) will include a panel titled “Publishing in Peer Reviewed Journals,” where Monumenta Nipponica will be represented by Bettina Gramlich-Oka. Also represented will be (in alphabetical order) Contemporary Japan (by Isaac Gagné), Japan Forum (Hannah Osborne), Japan Review (John Breen, Ted Boyle), Journal of Japanese Studies (Janet Hunter, Morgan Pitelka), and Social Science Japan Journal (Meredith Shaw, Gabriele Vogt).

The panel is scheduled for Wednesday, 25 August 2021, 11:45 a.m.–12:45 p.m. in time zone UTC+2 (Central European Summer Time). This session, organized by the EAJS Council, should be of great interest to potential authors and especially PhD candidates and early career scholars, who will find here an opportunity to get acquainted with these journals, learn more about the peer review process and publishing process overall, and get their questions answered. Further details are available at the following links:
https://nomadit.co.uk/eajs/eajs2021/
https://nomadit.co.uk/eajs/eajs2021/conference-explorer#timetable/day-21-08-25

We are deeply saddened by the news that Roselee Bundy, professor emerita of Japanese language and literature at Kalamazoo College, has passed away. Contributing numerous articles and book reviews to Monumenta Nipponica from 1990 until as recently as 2020, Rose also served on the MN advisory board beginning with volume 72 (2017).

The final article she authored for the journal came out only a few months ago—A Format of Their Own: The Hundred-Poem Sequences of Sone no Yoshitada, Minamoto no Shitagō, and the Priest Egyō (MN 75:1). The article can be accessed on Project MUSE at https://doi.org/10.1353/mni.2020.0000, or via the MN website’s search function, and is being made available for free download.

Gracing the journal’s annual nengajō greeting card in each of the past several years was a poem Rose had translated, including the following:

All of us at MN will miss her greatly.

An expanded list of out-of-print titles in the Monumenta Nipponica Monographs series and other books available through MN is now available in e-book format through Sophia University’s Institutional Repository (Sophia-R) on the Sophia University website.

Monumenta Nipponica: Eighty Years and Counting, a monograph presenting the story of the journal from its inception into the present, has just been published. The PDF version is available in both high and low resolutions.

In support of online learning during the COVID-19 crisis, MN content has been made freely available on the Project MUSE platform; this status will remain in effect through 30 June 2020.

Sophia University will host next year’s ASCJ Conference, to be held 4–5 July 2020. ASCJ has announced its call for papers, with the submission period to end 15 October 2019; for details and online forms, see: https://ascjapan.org. MN extends its best wishes to Mark Caprio (Rikkyo University, Tokyo), the ASCJ’s outgoing president, and to his successor Christopher Bondy (International Christian University, Tokyo).

On 2–5 October 2019, our own Sophia University will host Historical Legacies of Christianity in East Asia, an international workshop and symposium program cosponsored by the Kirishitan Bunko (Sophia University) and the Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History (University of San Francisco). This three-day program will include, on 4 October, “How to Publish: Presentations and Discussion with Publishers from Brill (Leiden) & Monumenta Nipponica (Sophia University, Tokyo),” led by Bettina Gramlich-Oka and Albert Hoffstädt (senior acquisitions editor, Brill Academic Publishers). The event is made possible in part by a generous grant from the Henry Luce Foundation. For more information, see www.ricci-institute.org.

The German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ) in Tokyo will hold a workshop, the Digital Transformation: Implications for the Social Sciences and the Humanities, 24–25 September 2019. Participating on the afternoon of the 24th will be Bettina Gramlich-Oka, who together with Ulrike Schaede (University of California, San Diego) and Hayashi Kazuhiro (National Institute of Science and Technology Policy) will present on the dissemination and evaluation of research outcomes; this session will be chaired by Susanne Brucksch (DIJ).

Bettina Gramlich-Oka had an exciting and eventful time at the annual conference of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) held 21–24 March in Denver, Colorado. While there she participated in a panel discussion titled “Japanese Studies Journals: Present Situation and Future Prospects,” held Friday, 22 March, 9:00 am-10:45 am. Also on the panel were Elizabeth Walker (Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group), Christopher Gerteis (Japan Forum), Janet Hunter (Journal of Japanese Studies), and Isaac Gagné (Contemporary Japan).

Among the many friends and colleagues at AAS 2019 was Elizabeth Brown, public relations manager at Project MUSE. We thank Liz and the rest of the MUSE team for their warm support!

We now look forward to the AAS-in-Asia Annual Conference, to be held 1–4 July 2019, in Bangkok. While there Bettina Gramlich-Oka will participate in the panel “Publishing Matters: Current Trends and Advice for Authors,” to be held Monday, 1 July, 10:30 am–12:15 pm. For more information about the conference, see the AAS website at http://www.asian-studies.org.

Videos from the symposium, held 6 October 2018, are now available. Please see below and also visit our YouTube channel.

This first-ever MN exhibit was held in the Sophia University Library 1–19 October 2018.