ARC-iJAC Activities

The 105th International ARC Seminar will be held as a Webinar on Wednesday, July 13, from 18:00 JST.

The program is as follows:

Speaker: Yuichi TAKATA (Senior Researcher, Data and Information Section, Department of Planning and Coordination, Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties)

Topic: SORAN and SORAN GIS as an Integrated Platform for Cultural Heritage Information

Date: Wednesday, July 13, 18:00 - 19:30 JST

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

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

Background:
Professor Hans Bjarne Thomsen has held the Chair for East Asian Art History at the Institute of Art History, University of Zurich, since 2007. His publications include Japanese Woodblock Prints from the Ernst Grosse Collection (2019). Supported by the International Joint Digital Archiving Center for Japanese Art and Culture (ARC-iJAC), Art Research Center, Prof. Thomsen conducted his research project 'Tracing the Reception of Japanese Art in the West: Case Study of Freiburg im Breisgau' in FY 2021, followed by the project 'Tracing the Reception of Japanese Art in the West: The Case of Monte Verità' in FY 2022.

Professor Thomsen, thank you very much for your time today. How did you first connect with the Art Research Center (ARC)?

Prof. Thomsen: I met Professor Akama in Geneva more than a decade ago. Since then, we have embarked on several projects digitizing and cataloging Japanese woodblock prints at the Print Cabinet in Geneva.

Thanks to the efforts of the ARC in digital archiving of these prints, we have held two exhibitions at the Print Cabinet--one on kabuki prints in 2014 and the other on surimono prints that is currently ongoing.

In 2016, the University of Zurich also held a three-day international symposium on katagami in Zurich where several ARC faculty members presented their research.

As part of its FY 2022 ARC-iJAC project, the Shochiku Otani Library released a digital archive of pre-war theater programs of the Kabuki-za Theater in Tokyo on July 1, 2022.

Based on an agreement between the library and the Art Research Center (ARC), these digitized programs have been integrated into the Shochiku Otani Library's Shibai Banzuke Browsing System (松竹大谷図書館所蔵・芝居番付検索閲覧システム), developed and made available to the public by the ARC.

Shochiku Otani Library <Shibai Banzuke Browsing System>
< https://www.dh-jac.net/db1/ban/search_shochiku.php?enter=shochiku&lang=en >

In 2020, the library launched a crowdfunding initiative to raise funds for digitizing and preserving approximately 1,180 volumes of pre-war theater programs--also known as sujigaki (筋書)--of the Kabuki-za Theater (歌舞伎座).

With this release, it has been possible to search and browse the Kabuki-za Theater sujigaki programs from the theater's establishment in Meiji 22 (1889) to the pre-war period on the web.

The Shibai Banzuke Portal Database made available by the ARC allows users to simultaneously search not only the ARC's own banzuke collection but also those of the Shochiku Otani Library and other institutions.

Along with the release of the sujigaki of the Kabuki-za held by the Shochiku Otani Library, the pre-war sujigaki of the Imperial Theater in Tokyo (帝国劇場) in the ARC collection are also made available for viewing.

We strive to continue our efforts to facilitate research in Japanese theater studies through digital archives.

On July 7, 2022, the Kyoto Shimbun featured an article on the Kyoto News Archive, a digital archiving project led by Professor Keiji Yano (College of Letters, Ritsumeikan University).

The Kyoto News Archive was released in the ARC Virtual Institute on June 24, 2022:
< ARC Virtual Institute: The Kyoto News Archive >

Related article>>

The Kyoto News Archive was released in the ARC Virtual Institute on June 24, 2022:
< ARC Virtual Institute: The Kyoto News Archive >

Kindly supported by the City of Kyoto and the Kyoto Toy Film Museum, the Commemorative Public Symposium 'The Kyoto News Archive: Lights of the Past Reflecting the Future' was held by the International Joint Digital Archiving Center for Japanese Art and Culture (ARC-iJAC), Art Research Center, Ritsumeikan University, on July 2, 2022.

Background

In collaboration with the Toy Film Museum in Kyoto, the Art Research Center (ARC) has been building a digital archive of Kyoto News--a series of newsreels produced by Kyoto City between 1956 and 1994 (Showa 31 - Heisei 6).

During that period, the newsreels were shown in movie theaters in Kyoto before the start of the main film. As one of the earliest regional newsreels, they are a valuable historical testimony of Kyoto City. They have recorded a wide range of topics in the city, including seasonal customs and festivals.

As the Kyoto News Archive has partly been completed and opened to the public, the public symposium was held to commemorate the launching of the archive, as well as to report on our research outcomes and discuss the prospects for regional video archives.

Symposium Information

Date: July 2 (Saturday), 2022

Time: 14:00 - 16:30 Japan Standard Time

Topic: The Kyoto News Archive: Lights of the Past Reflecting the Future

Event Venue: Online via Zoom

Organizer:

International Joint Digital Archiving Center for Japanese Art and Culture (ARC-iJAC), Art Research Center, Ritsumeikan University

Supported by: Kyoto City and the Toy Film Museum

Inquiries: Art Research Center, Ritsumeikan University

E-mail: arc-jimu(at)st.ritsumei.ac.jp (please change "at" to @)

URL: https://www.arc.ritsumei.ac.jp/

(*This event was held in Japanese)

The 103rd International ARC Seminar will be held as a Webinar on Wednesday, June 8, starting at 18:00 JST.

The program is as follows:

Speaker: Chikahiko Suzuki (Associate Professor, Department of Liberal Arts, Gunma Prefectural Women's University)

Topic: "KaoKore" and "edomi" - Examples of using humanities materials based on microcontents method

Date: Wednesday, June 8, 2022 18:00 - 19:30 JST

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

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

The 102nd International ARC Seminar, held on May 25, 2022, is now available on YouTube.

The program was as follows:

Topic: A trial to classify Mongolian legal documents using deep learning

Speaker: Biligsaikhan Batjargal (Affiliate Research Professor, Research Organization of Science and Technology, Ritsumeikan University)

We hope you enjoy the video!

The 101st International ARC Seminar, held on May 11, 2022, is now available on YouTube.

The program was as follows:

Topic: Going to War During the Taisho Period: Japan's Siberian Intervention of 1918-1922 as Illustrated by the Pictorial Diaries of Infantryman Takeuchi Tadao

Speaker: Dr. Nadine Willems (Lecturer in Japanese History, School of History, University of East Anglia)

We hope you enjoy the video!

The 100th International ARC Seminar, held on April 27, 2022, is now available on YouTube.

The program was as follows:

Topic: KOBAYASHI, Ichizo: Social and Cultural Projects as the Two Wheels of his Business

Speaker: Yoshiyuki SENKAI (Executive Board Member and Director, Itsuō Art Museum; Ichizo Kobayashi Memorial Museum; and Ikeda Bunko, Hankyu Culture Foundation)

We hope you enjoy the video!

We are pleased to announce the Call for Manuscript Submissions for the Art Research Center's journal ART RESEARCH vol. 23-1, 23-2, and 23-3. The publication has been reborn as an online journal.

As an academic journal specializing in arts and culture, the purpose of ART RESEARCH is to widely publicize the results of the research projects and activities conducted by the Art Research Center (ARC), Ritsumeikan University, and its partner institutions and collaborative researchers.

Since its establishment in 1998, the Art Research Center (ARC) has been selected for several national grants as a center of excellence for research in culture, art, and information science. In FY2019, the center assumed the role as the International Joint Digital Archiving Center for Japanese Art & Culture (ARC-iJAC) upon its accreditation by the MEXT as an International Joint Usage/Research Center. The ARC is highly regarded as a leading hub for the digital archiving of Japanese art and culture.

Our online journal will be published three times per year, and at the end of the fiscal year, a print booklet compiling all contributions will be distributed.

We accept manuscripts anytime as we hope to increase the submission opportunities for researchers.

We look forward to receiving your manuscript.