Japan Society E-Library

Japanese Studies (see also 'Scholars', 'Language')

Book: Britain and Japan 1859-1991: Themes and Personalities
Author: Bowring, Richard

Basil Hall Chamberlain (1850-1935) was a writer and prominent Japanologist, inspiring a generation of influential students. In this chapter, his life and career are assessed.  

Book: Biographical Portraits Volume VII
Author: Ion, Hamish

Arthur Lloyd (1852-1911) is best known as a missionary, teacher, author and pioneer in the study of Japanese Buddhism. He is also regarded - along with David Murray and Guido Verbeck - as one of.the pioneers of Japan's modern educational system.

Book: Britain and Japan 1859-1991: Themes and Personalities
Author: Harries, Phillip

This chapter details Arthur Waley's (1899-1966) career as one of the great translators of Japanese literary works and as an inspiration to generations of Japan scholars. 

Book: Biographical Portraits Volume III
Author: Hoare, James Edward

Captain Francis Brinkley provides the subject of this essay, in particular his journalism and scholarship regarding Japan over his forty year career in the country.

Book: Biographical Portraits Volume VII
Author: Kornicki, Peter

Carmen Blacker (1924-2009) became one of Britain's most original and perceptive scholars of Japan, and this account charts the development of her love for the country and the impact this had upon her choice and pursuit of a career in academia.

Book: Japan Experiences - Fifty Years, One Hundred Views: Post-War Japan Through British Eyes
Author: Blacker, Carmen

Carmen Blacker visited Japan in 1952 on a post-graduate studentship granted by HM Treasury, to study the 19th century scholar Yukichi Fukuzawa. While there she was invited to summer with the novelist Jiro Osaragi, during which time she began her work on Japanese religion and spent a week at the famous temple of Engakuji at Kamakura.

Book: Japan Experiences - Fifty Years, One Hundred Views: Post-War Japan Through British Eyes
Author: Cortazzi, Hugh

Eric Ceadel was lecturer in Japanese at the University of Cambridge, and visited Japan in 1950 to buy books for the University Library.

Book: Biographical Portraits Volume VIII
Author: Daniels, Gordon

Charles Alfred Fisher (1916-82) was an ex-prisoner of war, who played a significant, if forgotten role, in the rise of Japanese Studies.

Book: Biographical Portraits Volume VIII
Author: Cortazzi, Hugh

Charles Dunn (1915-1995) was one of the scholars responsible for the expansion of Japanese studies after the Second World War. This essay details his career as a scholar and dealings with the Japanese language.

Book: Biographical Portraits Volume I
Author: Dore, Ronald

This essay details the contribution of Frank Daniels (1900-83) towards teaching Japanese during the Second World War, and also his role in establishing a major centre for Japanese Studies at SOAS.

Book: Biographical Portraits Volume V
Author: Kornicki, Peter

The subject of this portrait is the remarkable life and career of Eric Bertrand Ceadel (1921-79), founding father of Japanese studies at Cambridge University.

Book: Biographical Portraits Volume III
Author: Kornicki, Peter

This essay provides a re-assessment of 'forgotten figure' Frederick Victor Dickins' (1838-1915) career in Japan as a scholar, lawyer and contributor to Japanese Studies.

Book: Japan Experiences - Fifty Years, One Hundred Views: Post-War Japan Through British Eyes
Author: Bownas, Geoffrey

Geoffrey Bownas was the first British scholar to study in Kyoto after the war, arriving there in 1952. Here he describes his experience, particularly with regard to the movement towards senzogaeri - 'returning home to the values of our ancestors'.

Book: Biographical Portraits Volume I
Author: Wilkinson, Jane

Scottish Doctor who lived in Japan treating Ainu communities. An amateur archaeologist and anthropologist who discovered evidence of the prehistoric people of Japan.

Book: Japan Experiences - Fifty Years, One Hundred Views: Post-War Japan Through British Eyes
Author: Nish, Ian

Ian Nish had been in Japan during the Occupation, and in the late 1950s was a lecturer at Sydney University. He visited Japan every year from 1957 to '63 for research.

Book: Japan Experiences - Fifty Years, One Hundred Views: Post-War Japan Through British Eyes
Author: Cortazzi, Hugh

This chapter puts the individual accounts included within Japan Experiences into the context of Anglo-Japanese post-war relations.

Book: Biographical Portraits Volume II
Author: Nakami Mari

This essay details the scholarly and journalistic efforts of J.W. Robertson-Scott (1866-1962), who wrote on Japanese foreign affairs, rural communities and agriculture during the First World War.

Book: Biographical Portraits Volume II
Author: Cortazzi, Hugh

Even though John Batchelor (1855-1945) was not an expert in linguistics, ethnology or folklore, his contributions to the understanding of the Ainu people is nonetheless significant. This essay details his missionary career and a life devoted to the Ainu people.

Book: Biographical Portraits Volume II
Author: Nish, Ian

Dubbed a 'master of the various problems of our Far Eastern Ally', John Harrington Gubbins (1852-1929) enjoyed a remarkable and significant diplomatic career in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Book: British Envoys in Japan 1859-1972
Author: Nish, Ian

Detailing John Harrington Gubbins's (1852-1929) long relationship with Japan, beginning as a student interpretor with the Far East Consular Service through to dealings with the British Legation in Japan. 

Book: Biographical Portraits Volume VI
Author: Ruxton, Ian

This essay provides an account of the life and career of Joseph Longford (1849-1925), one of the forgotten scholars of the Japan service.

Book: Japan Experiences - Fifty Years, One Hundred Views: Post-War Japan Through British Eyes
Author: Hendry, Joy

Anthropologist Joy Hendry describes her time conducting fieldwork, studying family life in rural Japan.

Book: Biographical Portraits Volume VII
Author: Maclean, Nicolas

This essay provides an account of sociologist Keith Thurley's (1931-92) lifelong commitment to industrial cooperation between Europe and Asia, and to the study of contemporary Japan.

Book: Japan Experiences - Fifty Years, One Hundred Views: Post-War Japan Through British Eyes
Author: Gardner, Kenneth

Ken Gardner was a Japanese language student during the war and returned to SOAS afterwards, becoming assistant librarian responsible for Japanese books. He then worked as Keeper of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts at the British Museum, and visited Japan in 1967.

Book: Biographical Portraits Volume VII
Author: Brown, Yu-Ying

Kenneth Gardner (1924-95) held senior posts in the British Museum and British Library, and was instrumental in these posts in promoting Japanese culture and Anglo-Japanese relations. This essay charts his career and significance within his field and beyond, including his war service as part of Translators V.

Book: Biographical Portraits Volume II
Author: Murray, Paul

The outstanding Western interpreter of Meiji Japan, Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904), provides the subject for this portrait; his time in America, Japan, and his relationships to his contemporaries.

Book: Biographical Portraits Volume V
Author: Purvis, Phillida

This portrait details the life and career of scholar Louis Allen (1922-91), especially his wartime service and postwar reconciliation efforts.

Book: Japan Experiences - Fifty Years, One Hundred Views: Post-War Japan Through British Eyes
Author: Allen, Louis

Louis Allen studied Japanese at SOAS during the war, and worked in Burma as a translator and interrogator. Here he describes his experiences of that time, as well as a remarkable reunion twenty years later.

Book: Japan Experiences - Fifty Years, One Hundred Views: Post-War Japan Through British Eyes
Author: Piggot, Major General F.S.G.

F.S.G Piggott was one of a small number of japanophiles left in post-war Britain, preferring to overlook the worst excesses of Japan's pre-war leaders. This chapter details his nostalgic view of life in pre-war Japan.

Book: Biographical Portraits Volume VIII
Author: Best, Antony

This essay details the miltary and diplomatic career of Major-General F.S.G. Piggott (1883-1966), whose efforts to secure peace and improve relations between Japan and Britain were fatally clouded by an uncritical love for Japan. Following the Pacific War he devoted his life to the restoration of Anglo-Japanese friendship.

Book: Biographical Portraits Volume I
Author: Blacker, Carmen

This essay considers the remarkable scholarly career of the brilliant but eccentric polymath Minakata Kumagusu (1867-1941), an expert in natural history, folklore and classicism, as well as an assessment of the significance of his time in London to his work.

Book: Biographical Portraits Volume VIII
Author: Purvis, Phillida

This portrait details the scholarly career of P.G. O'Neill (1924-2012), his study of the Japanese language, Japanese festivals and Nō theatre.

Book: Japan Experiences - Fifty Years, One Hundred Views: Post-War Japan Through British Eyes
Author: Kornicki, Peter

In this chapter Peter Kornicki describes how he became the first non-Japanese since the end of the war to be given a professorial position at a Japanese national university.

Book: Japan Experiences - Fifty Years, One Hundred Views: Post-War Japan Through British Eyes
Author: Swan, Peter

Peter Swan went to Japan in 1953 to study Chinese painting, and during his time there covered many facets of Japanese art. Here he gives an account of his visit.

Book: Japan Experiences - Fifty Years, One Hundred Views: Post-War Japan Through British Eyes
Author: Dore, Ronald

Among the outstanding students of Japanese during the war, Ronald Doore was so succesful that he was asked to stay on at SOAS as an additional teacher. He had to wait five years after the war for his first trip to Japan, and here he gives his account of Japan in the penultimate year of the Occupation.

Book: Biographical Portraits Volume II
Author: Britton, Dorothy

Richard Ponsonby-Fane (1878-37) was a prodigious scholar and writer on Japan, and yet his name is absent from encyclopaedias or bibliographies. Here Dorothy Britton celebrates his personal legacy.

Book: Japan Experiences - Fifty Years, One Hundred Views: Post-War Japan Through British Eyes
Author: Storry, Richard

Richard Storry was in Japan teaching before the war, and afterwards was a research fellow in Oxford. This chapter details his 1958 visit to Japan to collect material on Prince Fumimaro Konoye, Japanese Prime Minister from 1937 to '39 and 1940 to '41. It also describes a visit made in 1973, at the height of the oil crisis.

Book: Britain and Japan 1859-1991: Themes and Personalities
Author: Smith, Dennis

Sir Charles Eliot (1862-1931) became British Ambassador at Tokyo in 1919. This chapter details his life and career as an often overlooked figure in Anglo-Japanese relations, who made significant contributions to scholarship and whose time as ambassador coincided with the end of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance.

Book: British Envoys in Japan 1859-1972
Author: Smith, Dennis

This profile considers the career of Sir Charles Eliot (1862-1931) including his contributions to the field of oriental scholarship and his time as ambassador, overseeing the end of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. 

Book: Britain and Japan 1859-1991: Themes and Personalities
Author: Daniels, Gordon

This profile considers equally Sir George Sansom's (1883-1965) career as a diplomat, in which he pioneered the serious study of the Japanese economy, and historian. 

Book: British Envoys in Japan 1859-1972
Author: Daniels, Gordon

This profile considers equally Sir George Sansom's (1883-1965) career as a diplomat, scholar and historian. 

Book: Biographical Portraits Volume III
Author: Cortazzi, Hugh

This essay provides an account of the life and career of Sir John Figgess (1909-97), businessman, intelligence officer, diplomat and art expert.

Book: Biographical Portraits Volume III
Author: Cortazzi, Hugh

This essay describes how Sir John Pilcher (1912-90), as British ambassador in Japan between 1967 and 1972, helped to revive Anglo-Japanese friendship after the Second World War and was long remembered with affection both in Japan and by his friends and colleagues.

Book: British Envoys in Japan 1859-1972
Author: Cortazzi, Hugh

This essay describes how Sir John Pilcher (1912-1990), as British ambassador in Japan between 1967 and 1972, helped to revive Anglo-Japanese friendship after the Second World War and was long remembered with affection both in Japan and by his friends and colleagues.

Book: Biographical Portraits Volume VI
Author: Cortazzi, Hugh

Businessman Sir Peter Parker (1924-2002) made an outstanding contribution to Anglo-Japanese relations in the final decades of the twentieth century. This essay offers an account and analysis of his career and impact in relation to Japan.

Book: Biographical Portraits Volume II
Author: Cortazzi, Hugh

Vere Redman (1901-1975) worked, throughout his career as a journalist, press attaché, and in the British Ministry of Information, to contribute to understanding between British and Japanese. This essay recounts his journalistic efforts as they relate to Anglo-Japanese relations.

Book: Britain and Japan 1859-1991: Themes and Personalities
Author: Cortazzi, Hugh

This volume was published on the occasion of the centenary of the Japan Society, and in this chapter Sir Hugh Cortazzi chronicles its hundred year history, from its founding at the 1891 Congress of Orientalists, via the two world wars and a number of royal visits, through to the 1991 Japan Festival and an assessment of the Society's then challenging state of affairs.

Book: Britain and Japan 1859-1991: Themes and Personalities
Author: Blacker, Carmen

In this chapter, the lives of Sir Francis Taylor Piggott (1852-1925) and his son F.S.G. Piggott (1883-1966) are detailed in their relation to Japan and involvement with the Japan Society of London. Sir Francis was one of the founders of the Society, and his son was the guiding energy behind its post-war revival.

Book: Japan Experiences - Fifty Years, One Hundred Views: Post-War Japan Through British Eyes
Author: Beasley, William Gerard

Having served in Japan during the Occupation, Bill Beasley returned there to carry out post-doctoral research during a sabatical year in 1950, and again in 1956 and 1963.

Book: Biographical Portraits Volume VII
Author: Ion, Hamish

This essay details the two halves of Walter Dening's (1846-1913) career in Japan, first as a missionary with the CMS, and later as an agnostic teacher and journalist, when he became one of the best informed Western authorities on Meiji religious and literary thought.

Book: Britain and Japan 1859-1991: Themes and Personalities
Author: Kornicki, Peter

This chapter assesses the life of William George Aston (1841-1911), a diplomat and prominent scholar of Japan. Though Aston remains somewhat of a shadowy figure due to the lack of knowledge of his private life, this appraisal details how his scholarly works in the fields of linguistics and religion have stood the test of time.

Book: British Envoys in Japan 1859-1972
Author: Kornicki, Peter

This profile details William George Aston's (1841-1911) career in the consular service and his scholarly achievments as a writer of Japanese language learning books. 

Book: Biographical Portraits Volume VII
Author: Nish, Ian

William Beasley (1919-2006) was a pioneer in introducing Japanese history into British academic circles as a teacher, researcher and author. This essay recounts his career in academia.

Book: Biographical Portraits Volume IX
Author: Nish, Ian

Dr. Wolf Mendl (1926-1999) was one of a small number of British academics focussed upon the history of regional conflict in East Asia, with a particular interest in China-Japan relations during the Cold War. This portrait looks at the impact of his time in Japan on his personal life and scholarly career.

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