ARC-iJAC Activities

Illustrated books, ukiyo-e painting manuals, and other early modern Japanese books in the collection of the Royal Museums of Art and History of Belgium are now available online, with images for each page:
https://www.dh-jac.net/db1/books/search_belgium.php

These works can also be found by searching for "MRAH" in the "Owner" field in the ARC Early Japanese Books Portal Database: https://www.dh-jac.net/db1/books/search_portal.php

Takagi Yoko previously conducted a survey of the Museums' collection of early modern Japanese books, and published a simple listing of works in the collection in: "Berugii oritsu bijutsu rekishi hakubutsukan shozo wakan kosho ni tsuite," Bunka joshi daigaku kiyo: jinbun / shakai kagaku kenkyu, vol. 9 (2001 Jan), pp. 187-206. Click here to view or download the article: https://bunka.repo.nii.ac.jp/records/686.

The Art Research Center has maintained a digital archive of the Museums' collection of ukiyo-e since 2007. Roughly 8,750 ukiyo-e works can be viewed in the ARC Japanese Prints (Ukiyo-e) and Paintings Portal Database.

Following the digitization of ukiyo-e prints, the project was then continued, in order to produce a digital archive of early modern books. However, the Covid-19 pandemic interrupted the project, and publication online was delayed. The project was restarted in 2023, and 572 books, with images for each page, have now been released online.

The size of the images made publicly available in the ARC databases is limited. For those who wish to use larger images from these works, please inquire directly with the Image Studio at the Royal Museums of Art and History of Belgium.

The 145th International ARC Seminar will be held as a webinar on Wednesday, January 15, from 18:00 JST.

The program is as follows:

Speakers: Kiichi SUGANUMA (JSPS Post-doctoral Fellow, Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University)

Topic: 'The Possibilities of Digital Collection in Western Medieval-Renaissance Study'

Date: Wednesday, January 15, 2025, 18:00 - 19:30 JST

Participation: online via Zoom, free of charge (affiliated parties only, no reservation required)

*This webinar is open to everyone, and non-ARC members are invited to participate via YouTube.

The 144th International ARC Seminar will be held as a webinar on Wednesday, January 8, from 18:00 JST.

The program is as follows:

Speakers:
Naomi KAWASUMI (Professor, Area Studies Program, College of Letters, Ritsumeikan University)
Masahiro KATO (Professor, Area Studies Program, College of Letters, Ritsumeikan University)

Topic: 'The Society and Landscape of 1950s Okinawa as seen in Photographs'

Date: Wednesday, January 8, 2025, 18:00 - 19:30 JST

Participation: online via Zoom, free of charge (affiliated parties only, no reservation required)

*This webinar is open to everyone, and non-ARC members are invited to participate via YouTube.

The 143rd International ARC Seminar will be held as a webinar on Wednesday, December 25, from 18:00 JST.

The program is as follows:

Speakers:
Takashi NUMAGUCHI (Associate Professor, Department of Musicology, Tokyo University of the Arts)
Chiaki SAWADA (Associate Professor, Department of Performance & Composition, Kunitachi College of Music)
Akemi TSUKADA (Librarian, Kunitachi College of Music Library)

Topic: 'The Collection of Early Printed Music of Beethoven in the Kunitachi College of Music Library: The Significance and Pleasure of Chamber Music'

Date: Wednesday, December 25, 18:00 - 19:30 JST

Participation: online via Zoom, free of charge (affiliated parties only, no reservation required)

The Call for Applications for FY 2025 International Joint Research with Research Fund is open until January 20 (Mon), 2025, 12:00 noon (JST). Successful projects will receive research funds from the International Joint Digital Archiving Center for Japanese Art and Culture (ARC-iJAC), Art Research Center, Ritsumeikan University.

Learn more about the application here.

• Guidelines
• Application Form

The 142nd International ARC Seminar will be held as a webinar on Wednesday, December 11, from 18:00 JST.

The program is as follows:

Speaker: Dr. Akiko YANO (Mitsubishi Corporation Curator (Japanese Collections), Department of Asia, British Museum)

Topic: 'Creative Collaborations: Salons and Networks in Kyoto and Osaka, 1780-1880'

Date: Wednesday, December 11, 18:00 - 19:30 JST

Participation: online via Zoom, free of charge (affiliated parties only, no reservation required)

*This webinar is open to everyone, and non-ARC members are invited to participate via YouTube.

Roughly 1200 items of digitized audio from roughly 600 78rpm Kabuki records in the collection of Onishi Hidenori have been made available to listen to online.

It goes without saying that these 78rpm "standard playing" (SP) records, capturing the unamplified natural voices of Kabuki actors of the late 19^th to early 20^th centuries, are extremely valuable resources for Kabuki research. However, institutions which hold such records in their collections are limited, and since particular equipment is required for playing the records, up until now they have not been widely accessible.

Roughly 650 such Kabuki SP records have been identified as having been produced between 1907 and 1955. Of those, roughly 85% are included in this digitized collection and are made available to be listened to at any time online.

The Onishi Record Collection database is available here:
https://www.dh-jac.net/db2/video/search_onishi.php

Please click the "Art Tube" button next to items in the search results to listen to the audio.　

One can also listen to these recordings in the ARC Audio-Video Portal Database:
https://www.dh-jac.net/db2/video/search_portal.php?lang=en

Among archives of vinyl records, the National Diet Library's Historical Recordings Collection (Rekion) is well-known. Currently, roughly 110 Kabuki records are available in that database to the general public. The added publication of the Onishi Record Collection dramatically expands the number of recordings available.

This online archive also includes features unavailable in others.

Jackets, envelopes, lyrics listings, and other associated materials can also be viewed. Further, images of the entire surface of the record, not only of the label, are viewable, so one can see the condition of the record itself. The database also includes links to banzuke cast listings and other materials, so one can enjoy a multi-dimensional listening experience.

On December 6, 2024, a group of faculty members and students of Korea University, led by Prof. Byeong-Ho Jeong (Department of Japanese Language and Literature, College of Liberal Arts, Korea University), visited the Art Research Center (ARC).

Besides a tour of the ARC building and facilities, discussions and an exchange of opinions on collaboration in digital humanities took place with Prof. Satoshi Tanaka (College of Information Science and Engineering) and Dr. Travis Seifman (Kinugasa Research Organization/ARC Research Manager).

The 141th International ARC Seminar will be held as a webinar on Wednesday, November 27, from 18:00 JST.

The program is as follows:

Speaker: Eiji ARAKAKI (City History Editorial Team, Cultural Division, Nanjo City Board of Education)

Topic: 沖縄県南城市におけるデジタルアーカイブ事業 (The Digital Archiving Project in Nanjo City, Okinawa)

Date: Wednesday, November 27, 18:00 - 19:30 JST

Participation: online via Zoom, free of charge (affiliated parties only, no reservation required)

*This webinar is open to everyone, and non-ARC members are invited to participate via YouTube.

Greetings from the Art Research Center at Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan.

With the establishment of the International Joint Digital Archiving Center for Japanese Art and Culture (ARC-iJAC) in 2019, the Art Research Center strives to push the internationalization of research activities that transcend disciplines and geographic boundaries. NEWS We express our sincere gratitude to HIH Princess Akiko of Mikasa who gave a talk on 'A Tale of the Royal and Imperial Households: The Trajectory of UK-Japan Relations' on October 23 as part of the International ARC Seminar series. Furthermore, we were delighted to welcome members of the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) to the ARC who visited us as part of the society's first study tour to Japan. ARC-iJAC Project Spotlights: An Interview with Kazuko Kameda-Madar (Visiting Professor, Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Striving to contribute to achieving peace through Japanese art, Dr. Kameda-Madar talks about the Japanese art collection held by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and her related ARC-iJAC project to digital archive this collection. >> Read more. New! ART RESEARCH vol. 25-1 is available Release of the Digitally Archived Materials of the Tsukiji Sugoroku Museum A database containing 650 Sugoroku items, representing about 500 different kinds of Sugoroku game boards dating from the Edo period to the early 1950s, collected by Osamu Yoshida, President of the Tsukiji Sugoroku Museum, has been released in the ARC Database System. >> Read more. >> Database. Launch of the Shahon Mokuroku (写本目録)/Manuscripts (Bibliographic) Database for the Japanese Manuscripts Collection of the C.V. Starr East Asian Library, UC Berkeley We are pleased to announce the launch of the new Shahon Mokuroku 写本目録/Manuscripts (Bibliographic) Database, which includes over 3,400 bibliographic records for Japanese handwritten manuscripts held by the C. V. Starr East Asian Library, University of California, Berkeley. >> Read more. This database can be accessed through the Library's Japanese Special Collections portal provided by the ARC. The Symposium 'Creative Collaborations in Kyoto, Osaka and Beyond, 1770-1900,' jointly organized by the British Museum and the ARC-iJAC, was held on Sep 10-11, 2024 On September 10 and 11, 2024, the British Museum and the ARC-iJAC jointly hosted a symposium at SOAS University of London as part of the 3-year international joint research project 'Creative Collaborations: Salons and Networks in Kyoto and Osaka 1780-1880 (上方文化サロン：人的ネットワークから解き明かす文化創造空間 1780-1880),' supported by UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). >> Read more. A Special Display, showcasing the outcomes of this joint research project, is up at the British Museum until March 2025. >> Details. Release of the Shochiku Otani Library's Browsing System of Takemoto Yukahon (松竹大谷図書館 竹本床本検索閲覧システム) A digital archive of Takemoto yukahon theatrical chanters' books has been released as part of the FY 2024 ARC-iJAC project '演劇上演記録データベースを活用した、演劇資料画像検索閲覧システムの構築に関る研究.' >> Read more. >> Database. The National Diet Library's Historical Recordings Collection (Rekion) is available at the ARC We are pleased to announce that we offer access to the National Diet Library's Historical Recordings Collection (Rekion) streaming service as one of its partner institutions. If you would like to listen to the recordings at the ARC, please refer to the link below for the application process. → https://www.arc.ritsumei.ac.jp/e/application/ New! Recommended Publications by ARC-Affiliated Reseachers 'Salon culture in Japan: making art, 1750−1900' (hardback) by Akiko Yano (editor/ARC Visiting Collaborative Researcher) Publisher: British Museum Press ISBN: 9780714124964 'Fashion and the Floating World: Japanese ukiyo-e Prints' (hardback) by Anna Jackson (author) and Masami Yamada (author/ARC Visiting Collaborative Researcher) Publisher: V&A Publishing ISBN: 9781838510503 Upcoming Events November 20-22, 2024, 10:00-17:00 JST Exhibition '手書き映画ポスターと看板の世界' 第三回 ～松竹蒲田撮影所制作作品より～ Venue: Multi-Purpose Room, Art Research Center, Kinugasa Campus, Ritsumeikan University Free entry. November 27 (Wed), 2024, 18:00-19:30 JST 141. International ARC Seminar Speaker: Eiji ARAKAKI (City History Editorial Team, Nanjo City Board of Education, Cultural Division) Topic: The Digital Archiving Project in Nanjo City, Okinawa (held in Japanese) Live stream available via >> YouTube. Previous issues: Summer 2024, Spring 2024, Winter 2023, Autumn 2023, Summer 2023, Spring 2023, Winter 2022, Autumn 2022, Summer 2022, Spring 2022, Winter 2021, Autumn 2021, Summer 2021, Spring 2021, Winter 2020, Autumn 2020, Summer 2020, Spring 2020 view this email in your browser Copyright © 2024 Art Research Center, Ritsumeikan University. All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: 56-1 Toji-in Kitamachi, Kita-ku, Kyoto 603-8577 JAPAN Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.