Japanese studies

Japanese Studies (or Japanology) is a term generally used in Europe to describe the historical and cultural study of Japan; in North America, the academic field is usually referred to as Japanese studies, which includes contemporary social sciences as well as classical humanistic fields.

European Japanology is the study of language, culture, history, literature, art, music, Manga, Anime, science, etc. Its roots may be traced back to the Dutch at Dejima, Nagasaki in the Edo period. The foundation of the Asiatic Society of Japan at Yokohama in 1872 by men such as Ernest Satow and Frederick Victor Dickins was an important boost to this fledgling academic discipline which has since grown into an internationally respected field.

Notable Japanologists

• Edwin O. Reischauer
• Edward Seidensticker
• Ruth Benedict
• Donald Keene
• Francis Xavier
• Ernest Mason Satow

Notable foreign centers of Japanese studies

• University of Virginia Japanese Text Initiative
• Harvard University - Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies
• University of California, Berkeley - Center for Japanese Studies
• Columbia University - The Center for Japanese Legal Studies
• Oxford University - Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies
• School of Oriental and African Studies - The Japan Research Centre and Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures
• School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences – Centre de Recherches sur le Japon
• Leiden University - Japanese Languages and Cultures
• Universitas Indonesia - Japanese Area Studies Programme
• University of the Philippines – Center for Japanese Studies

Associations for Japan Studies overseas

• European Association for Japanese Studies
• British Association for Japanese studies
• The Society for Japanese Studies (United States)

Notable Academic Journals

• Journal of Japanese Studies (The Society for Japanese Studies)
• Monumenta Nipponica (Sophia University)
• Social Science Japan Journal (Oxford University Press)

Notable Books about Japan

• The Chrysanthemum and the Sword
• The Anatomy of Dependence
• Inside the Robot Kingdom: Japan, Mechatronics, and the Coming Robotopia
• The Lone Samurai
• Bushido: The Soul of Japan
• Warriors of Legend

See also

• Nihonjinron
• Japonism
• Bushido
• Wa (Japan)
• Japanese aesthetics
• Kokugaku
• Yamato
• Oriental studies
• Orientalism
• International Research Center for Japanese Studies
• The Japan Academy

External links

• Electronic journal of contemporary Japanese studies
• European Association for Japanese Studies