Quick Links:
OU Links
Japan news and information (online newspapers, etc.)
Japanese research sites (bibliographies, databases, library and archive catalogs, etc.)
Japanese research sites (specific issues)
Resources for teaching about Asia (for K-12 and college teachers)
University of Oklahoma Home Page
JSA
The OU Japan Student Association takes as its mission “The promotion of learning and sharing of Japanese culture, and the encouragement of multicultural view of Japan and other countries.”
OU Modern Languages Learning Center
Access audio and video materials (including narrative and documentary film) in Japanese. You will need an OU 4x4 and password to access some parts of the site.
OU Writing Center
Staff at the Writing Center can help you think through your writing assignments, and can look at early drafts of your papers. See their web site for useful handouts and online resources.
OU School of International and Area Studies
The goals of The School of International and Area Studies (SIAS) are to train students to succeed in an increasingly interdependent world and to promote internationalization of the curriculum at the University of Oklahoma.
Major Japanese Newspapers Online:
Useful Tools:
Jim Breen's WWWJDIC Japanese-English Dictionary Server
Translator and Dictionary
Other Information Sites:
Foreign Press Center/Japan
In English and Japanese. "The Foreign Press Center/Japan (FPCJ) plays an essential role in facilitating news gathering activities in Japan by organizing press briefings and tours, making practical arrangements for interviewing and filming, providing rich and up-to-date media resources through our website and our original publications."
Goo
In Japanese only. This is a Japanese site similar to Yahoo or Excite, including a search engine, news, dictionaries, and more.
JGuide
Stanford guide to Japan information resources.
The Online Japanese Language & Culture Resource Community (JOL)
Use and membership are free to the public. Japanese-Online.com is designed to bring together people who are interested in learning about the Japanese language and culture. The site includes language and math lessons, a free online dictionary, forum / BBS posting section, and a bi-weekly Member's Newsletter.
The Bibliography of Asian Studies
The online version of the BAS, referencing principally western-language articles and book chapters on all parts of Asia published since 1971, is available via library subscription. OU users may access the database via the OU libraries website (login to the OU libraries site, then search LORA for Bibliography of Asian Studies).
East-West Center
The East-West Center is an education and research organization
established by the U.S. Congress in 1960 to strengthen relations and
understanding among the peoples and nations of Asia, the Pacific, and
the United States. The Center contributes to a peaceful, prosperous,
and just Asia Pacific community by serving as a vigorous hub for
cooperative research, education, and dialogue on critical issues of
common concern to the Asia Pacific region and the United States.
Funding for the Center comes from the U.S. government, with
additional support provided by private agencies, individuals,
foundations, corporations, and the governments of the region.
GiNii
GiNii is an integrated search system of databases letting users search materials in four databases at once: CiNii for papers, theses, etc.; Webcat Plus for books, magazines, etc.; Kaken for grants-in-aid for scientific research; NII-DBR for Academic Research Databases.
The Gordon Prange Collection
The Gordon Prange Collection at the University of Maryland is a valuable repository of media, consisting of magazines, newspapers and books published in Japan during the post-war occupation period from 1945 to 1949. Many of the publications in the collection cannot be found in libraries in Japan. Collection Research can be searched online (in Japanese) at http://prangedb.kicx.jp/.
The Historiographical Institute at the University of Tokyo
In English, Japanese, German and French. Shiryo Hensan-jo (the Historiographical Institute, HI), the University of Tokyo, has as its primary objective, rather than historiography in general, analysis, compilation, and publication of historical source materials concerning Japan. The Institute has become a major center of Japanese historical research, and makes historical sources available through its library, publications, and recently, databases.
International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken)
In English and Japanese. The International Research Center for Japanese Studies, commonly refered to as Nichibunken, was established in May 1987 as an Inter-University Research Institute under the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports, and Culture (Monbusho). The Center was founded to foster comprehensive international and interdisciplinary research and to support scholars of Japanese studies from around the world. Nichibunken databases available on the site contain a wide range of materials related to the study of Japan.
JPOLL, the Japan Public Opinion Location Library
JPOLL is the only comprehensive, web-based, searchable archive of public opinion data from Japan. More than 10,000 individual survey questions and answers, in English, dating from 1990 to the present, are available. JPOLL is a program of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, which maintains the world's largest archive of public opinion data.
NACSIS Webcat
In Japanese only. Database of materials held at major libraries and archives throughout Japan. (Like the Japanese version of FirstSearch/Worldcat.) This link is to use the old Webcat interface. You can access the new WebcatPlus by clicking the link to it on the upper right-hand corner of this NACSIS site, or by going to GiNii (see link above).
National Diet Library, Tokyo
In English and Japanese. This is Japan's national information repository, and its website contains links to numerous databases including the National Diet Library Digital Archive Portal (PORTA), which is a comprehensive portal site that navigates you to a vast repository of Japanese digital information resources and services providing such resources. The Electronic LIbrary contains (among other things) an image database of the books published in the Meiji and Taisho era and held by the NDL. The
NDL Online Gallery features electronic exhibitions of the NDL's unique collections with easy-to-understand explanations, including photographs from the Meiji and Taisho eras, and photographs of important modern historical figures. Under the general title "Memories of Japan", an increasing number of exhibitions of Japanese history and culture will become available to the public.
Ohara Institute for Social Research
In English and Japanese. The OISR is the largest repository of primary and secondary source materials on Japanese labor, Marxism, and the working classes.
TRC: Toshokan Ryutsu Center
In Japanese only. This site allows you to search for any book published in Japan to find out whether it is in print, retail price, and full publishing information. From the main page, click on the yellow BK1 icon in the lower left to search for titles or authors.
Zasshi Kiji Sakuin: Japan Periodicals Index
The Zasshi Kiji Sakuin is a searchable database of over 15,000 general interest, academic, and medical titles from the National Diet Library's collection of periodicals. Note: the Zasshi Kiji Sakuin is noat availabla afternoons. It is down Tuesday through Saturday from 2:00pm to 5:00pm Eastern Standard Time and Mondays 11:00am to 5:00pm. On the third Monday of each month the database is down from 8:00am to 5:00pm.
JAPAN RESEARCH SITES (Specific Issues)
Constitutional Revision in Japan: A Research Project of the Edwin O. Reishauer Institute of Japanese Studies, Harvard University
The Purpose of the Research Project on Constitutional Revision is to document the move to revise the Japanese constitution and to understand its implications for politics, society, the economy, and culture. The website features the harvested output of around eighty websties in Japan representing political parties, individual politicians, governmental organizations, citizens' groups and NGOs, research institutes, labor groups, business groups, religious organizations, and individual scholars that are the most active in debating constitutional revision. It also features an extensive Bibliography of over 1,000 archival and online sources, as well as research guides, a Chronology, and links to a variety of relevant digital resrouces. Links to the full English and Japanese language texts of both the Meiji constitution and the postwar constitution can also be found on the site.
The Contemporary Okinawa Website
In English. The Contemporary Okinawa Website was established in 1995 as an educational, public resource for information on Okinawa in English. The “archive” section of this site contains prewar, wartime and postwar primary documents in English that pertain to Okinawa and its relationship to Japan and the U.S.
Japan Focus
Japan Focus presents writings about Japan, Japan in Asia and the world, as well as Japanese and international perspectives on contemporary Japanese politics, economics, society, and culture. It offers translations from Japanese, reprints of important English language texts, and Japan Focus originals.
Japan Policy Research Institute (JPRI)
The Japan Policy Research Institute is a non-profit membership organization dedicated to the promotion of understanding of Japan's political and economic behavior and growing significance in world affairs.
The Japanese Constitution: A Documentary History of its Framing and Adoption, 1945-1947
Edited by Ray A. Moore and Donald L. Robinson
This site provides installation information and a Table of Contents for Moore and Robinson’s cd-rom collection of documents on Japan’s constitution. The documents are all in English, having either been originally written in English or else translated from the Japanese. The cd-rom is available at OU’s Bizzell Library at the call number KNX 2064.51947 .A5 C66 1998
Joseph Berry Keenan Digital Collection
The Joseph Berry Keenan Digital Collection—comprised of manuscript materials and photographs—offers researchers invaluable insight into the Japanese War Crimes Trial -- one of the most important trials of the twentieth century.
Memory and Reconciliation in the Asia-Pacific
is a research and policy program located within the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at the George Washington University in Washington D.C. It is currently focused on China, Japan, and Korea. We begin with the history of Japanese colonialism and World War II because it is particularly entangled in current regional and domestic politics. Our goal is to connect individuals and institutions across the Pacific, increase awareness about efforts at conflict resolution and confidence-building in the region, and promote cooperative endeavors through conferences, joint projects, and commissioned papers
Ochanomizu University Institute for Gender Studies
In English and Japanese.
Professor Mizuno Naoki’s Modern Korean Research Page
In Japanese only. This site is run by Professor Mizuno of Kyoto University, a prominent Japanese scholar of modern Korean history. It includes a searchable database of prewar Japanese newspaper articles on Zainichi Koreans (Japanese-Koreans, or Koreans resident in Japan).
Violence Against Women in War Network
In English or Japanese. VAWW-NET Japan was formed in 1998 with the conviction that "in order to eliminate violence against women in war and armed conflicts, women at the global and national levels are seeking to build a non-militarized world by bearing the responsibility of creating a peace that is based on the perspective of women's human rights." Their website contains full text and translations of documents relating to the Women’s Tribunal 2000. "The Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan's Military Sexual Slavery" (the Women's Tribunal) was a people's tribunal organized by Asian women and human rights organizations and supported by international NGOs. It was set up to adjudicate Japan's military sexual violence, in particular the enslavement of "comfort women," to bring those responsible for it to justice, and to end the ongoing cycle of impunity for wartime sexual violence against women.
RESOURCES FOR TEACHING ABOUT ASIA
About Japan: A Teacher's Resource
This site, offered by the Japan Society of New York, provides educators and specialists in Japan Studies a space for sharing, discussing and eveloping teaching ideas and resources about Japan, espeically as they relate to K-12 classrooms.
Asia for Educators
An initiative of the East Asian Curriculum Project and the Project on Asia in the Core Corriculum of Columbia University.
Education About Asia
Publication for teachers of East Asia, with supplemental course materials online.
MIT Visualizing Cultures/Visualizing Japan
This site includes the following units:
- Black Ships & Samurai
- Yokohama Boomtown
- Felice Beato's Japan: Places
- Felice Beato's Japan: People
- Throwing Off Asia
- Asia Rising
- Yellow Promise/Yellow Peril
- Ground Zero 1945: Pictures by Atomic Bomb Survivors
Oklahoma Consortium for Teaching about Asia/Oklahoma Institute for Teaching East Asia
The purpose of The Oklahoma Institute for Teaching East Asia (OKITEA) is to assist teachers in making East Asia an integral and permanent part of their curriculum. It operates in conjunction with OCTA, the purpose of which is to foster a permanent place for the teaching and study of Asia in middle and secondary school courses devoted to world history, world cultures, or world geography. Its goal is to have 80% of American middle and high schools teaching serious content in Asian history, geography, and literature within 10 years time. Additionally, to provide teachers with enriched background on Chinese, Japanese and Korean classical traditions, modern history and contemporary issues. The East Asia Seminar, in conjunction with Columbia University is part of a national program to improve education about Asia.
UCLA Asia Institute
Lots of information on Asia in the K-12 Curriculum