ARC-iJAC Activities

We kindly invite you to join the one-day workshop Digitization of Historical Cities in Egypt and Japan.

Date: Saturday, November 6, 2021 16:00-18:30 JST (09:00 - 11:30 Cairo Time)

Organizer: Research Project Qait'bay Citadel (1477-1479): Visualizing the Main Coastal Fortification of Medieval Alexandria, Egypt, supported by the International Joint Digital Archiving Center for Japanese Art and Culture (ARC-iJAC), Art Research Center, Ritsumeikan University.

PI: Dr. Mohamed Soliman, DMUCH, Ritsumeikan University, Japan / National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics (NRIAG), Egypt

Co-PI: Prof. Mona Gamal El-Din, Dean of EECE, Egypt - Japan University of Science and Technology (E-JUST), Egypt

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

Registration: Via Google Forms https://forms.gle/VPCux4LSutdLZLmB9

Background: In the time of natural disasters, VR technology became a world requirement for Digital Humanities. Tourism is considered one of the hardest hits by the COVID-19 outbreak, as well as the typical approach of humanities, basically archaeology. Exceptional restrictions and the state of emergency imposed everywhere prevent the world and local movement. On the other hand, the fire disaster at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in April 2019 made the world aware of the necessity of 3D laser measurement data and panoramic images of the Notre Dame Cathedral left behind by the art historian Andrew Tallon (1969 - 2018). Systems that require specialized knowledge are becoming easier to use in the form of applications.

Visualizing historical cities in Japan and Egypt is targeted to document a cultural heritage, which exposes to natural and man-made disasters. Consequently, this workshop aims to promote the advanced technology applications in the field of humanities and strengthen the scientific collaboration among Japanese and Egyptian institutions and scholars, taking into consideration achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs).

Objectives of this workshop: (1) Showcasing the diverse contributions and sharing knowledge of Japanese and Egyptian institutions in Digital Humanities. (2) Enlarging network and strengthening future scientific collaboration among Japanese and Egyptian scholars in Digital Humanities.

Agenda

Saturday, November 6, 2021

(Note: As in Japan Standard Time)

Time	Item
16:00- 16:10	Opening remarks ● Prof. Keiji Yano-Ritsumeikan University, Japan ● Prof. Mona Gamal al-Din, Dean of the School of Energy Resources, Environment, Chemical and Petrochemical Engineering, E-JUST, Egypt ● Prof. Gad el-Qady, President of National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics (NRIAG), Egypt
16:10- 16:30	Presentation 1: Prof. Keiji Yano (Ritsumeikan University): Virtual Kyoto Project
16:30- 16:50	Presentation 2: Mikiharu Takeuchi (Ritsumeikan University): Virtual Heian-kyo on WebGIS
16:50- 17:10	Presentation 3: Mohamed Soliman (Ritsumeikan University/NRIAG) & Naoyo Sekihiro (Kyoto City Archaeological Research Institute): Generating metashape of Kyoto City Archaeological Museum collection 京都市考古資料館
17:10- 17:20	Break
17:20-17:40	Presentation 4: Ahmed Gomaa (NRIAG): Cultural Heritage Documentation in Historical Cairo Using Terrestrial Laser Scanner Case study of Moheb El-Din Abu El-Tayeb Hall and El-Kadi House
17:40-18:00	Presentation 5: Mohamed Soliman (Ritsumeikan University/NRIAG) & Doaa Ali (Ministry of Tourism & Antiquities): Visualization of Qait'bay Citadel Project: new horizon for Alexandria cultural heritage.
18:00-18:20	Presentation 6: Wakako Kumakura (ILCAA-TUFS) and Naoko Fukami (Director of JSPS Station-Cairo): Preserving Materials as Resources: An Attempt through Qalawun VR Project and Database of Historical Monuments in Islamic Cairo
18:20-18:30	Closing

An online kickoff seminar to mark the beginning of the Kuzushiji Training Course Phase 2 was held on Friday, October 22, 2021.

The event was hosted by the International Joint Digital Archiving Center for Japanese Art and Culture (ARC-iJAC), Art Research Center, Ritsumeikan University in cooperation with the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken).

The objective of the second phase is to support seminar participants in obtaining hands-on experience in the ARC Transcription Support System through individual projects of transcribing literary works that they have selected in the ARC Early Japanese Book Portal Database.

Following opening remarks by ARC Deputy Director Professor Ryo Akama (College of Letters), Professor Hiroshi Araki of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken) gave a special lecture on '本を「ツナグ」 ―「くずし字」のデジタル・ネットワーキングへー'.

After that, the project leaders of the participating kuzushiji projects, and the tutors who will provide guidance and feedback during the second phase of the training course introduced themselves, their projects, and areas of specialty.

This event was supported by the 'International Exchange Program for Young Researchers through Reading Early Japanese Books and Documents (Deciphering Kuzushiji)' adopted by the Consortium for Global Japanese Studies.

For further information, read the interview with Prof. Ryo Akama on the Kuzushiji Training Course and the ARC Transcription Support System: https://www.arc.ritsumei.ac.jp/e/news/pc/008080.html

Kyoto Shimbun reported on Assistant Professor Hirotaka Sato (College of Letters)--a member of the Art Research Center--who has 'restored' the landscape of Yumiya-cho in the early Meiji era with a digital archive. Yumiya-cho is located in the Higashiyama district of Kyoto.

On October 21, 2021, the Kyoto Shimbun featured an article on the digital archiving of films that belonged to the late Aimi Akira, initiated by Associate Professor Shinya Saito (College of Image Arts and Sciences)--a member of the Art Research Center.

Professor Saito plans to create a database on these films as part of his project Kyoto Street Culture Archive: Memories of the Pop Culture Featuring the Streets, and their Visualization.

The Art Research Center (ARC) is delighted to announce the conclusion of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Research Center for Area Studies, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (P2W-LIPI).

A Framework for Collaborative Projects in Digital Humanities

The new MoU builds upon our first MoU signed with LIPI for four years in 2017 and marks a continuation of the successful and fruitful collaboration of both institutions thus far.

The MoU provides a stable framework to advance our collaborative projects in digital humanities, including the research and archival projects on Borobudur Temple, Liyangang site, and Punjulharjo site in Indonesia.

Furthermore, the MoU supports the organization of joint symposia, seminars, and conferences, as well as the exchange of scientists and scientific materials pertaining to our collaborative projects.

Project Spotlight: Digital Archiving of Borobudur Temple, a UNESCO World Heritage

On the ARC side, Professor Satoshi Tanaka (College of Information Science and Engineering) has been leading the digital archiving project of Borobudur Temple that encompasses the ultra-high-quality 3D see-through visualization of this large-scale UNESCO World Heritage Site.

"Since we are the first foreign scientist team to conduct a 3D scanning of this vast archaeological site, it is a significant international joint research project for the Art Research Center," says Professor Tanaka.

He plans to create a next-generation, ultra-high-definition virtual reality tour of the temple compounds that will be made available on the internet and in local community centers in Indonesia, and a dynamical time-series visualization of the temple's building process.

→ Interview with Professor Satoshi Tanaka on Visualizing Large-Scale Cultural Heritage: https://www.arc.ritsumei.ac.jp/e/news/pc/007293.html

The crowdfunding initiative of Shochiku Otani Library in Tokyo that Professor Ryo Akama--Deputy Director of the Art Research Center--has been supporting in its digital-archiving activities was featured in the Tokyo Shimbun on October 17, 2021.

The article introduces the 10th anniversary of the crowdfunding initiative that aims at digitizing and making online available severely damaged materials in the library collection.

Nearly half of the donations for the crowdfunding initiative have been made by repeated users, and the number of young users who came to know about the library through crowdfunding has steadily increased.

The Art Research Center (ARC), Ritsumeikan University, is delighted to announce the release of the 'Surname Map'--a research project led by Professor Keiji Yano (College of Letters), Deputy Director of the ARC.

Project Background

Until the end of the Edo period, Japanese surnames had exclusively been granted to the emperor, nobility, and samurais. Following the Meiji Restoration and the enactment of the family registration law in the early Meiji period, farmers and other commoners also began to adopt surnames.

With more than 100,000 different surnames, Japan is not only characterized by great diversity in surnames but also regional variations in their distribution.

Based on big data of about 40 million surnames from Japanese telephone directories and large-scale residential maps, the Surname Map visualizes the contemporary spatial distribution of surnames across all prefectures in Japan.

This research began in 2005 when Professor Yano, then a visiting researcher at University College London (UCL), joined Professor Paul Longley's research project on surnames around the world at the Department of Geography, UCL.

Professor Longley had mapped surnames from the UK's 1881 Census of Individual Voters and the 1998 Electoral Roll to analyze the movement of surnames over more than a hundred years.

In the UK, a country with an ethnically diverse population, he measured ethnic residential segregation by inferring ethnic origins from surnames.

For the project of Professor Longley to create a world map of surnames, Professor Yano provided the Japanese surnames.

Features of the Surname Map

The interactive map provides users with valuable insights into the geographic distribution of their individual surnames in a simple and illustrative manner.

Firstly, the map displays the frequency of a surname in absolute numbers (人数) and ranking according to prefectures.

Secondly, the map shows the relative degree of accumulation, i.e., how evenly a surname is distributed throughout the country, with the specialization coefficient (特化係数).

An option is available to display the absolute numbers and specialization coefficient on two maps side by side.

Furthermore, the distribution trends of two surnames can be compared side by side.

Explore Regional Variations

The map enables users to explore and identify the geographic concentration and regional clusters of surnames.

For instance, the map reveals that some surnames are particularly unique to a region, such as 'Ganaha' (我那覇) in Okinawa.

In the case of Okinawa, the heavy concentration of 'Ganaha' (我那覇) has been considered a result of the relative isolation of the Ryukyu Islands that has led to minimal surname exchange with mainland Japan, whereas there are different reasons for other localities, such as government policy implications on the settlement of Hokkaido.

Current & Future Research Endeavors

Professor Yano's Surname Map builds on the growing interest in the regional analysis of surnames in Japan and other parts of the world.

As in the UK, there exists no exhaustive historical surname data for the whole country in Japan. For Kyoto, however, a database has been created as part of the Virtual Kyoto Project--another project led by Professor Yano. He is working on establishing links within this data that comprise name data from land registry maps from the end of the Meiji period (1868-1912), telephone directories, and the names of people in commerce and industry during the Taisho period (1912-1926).

Other projects include an investigation in the hometowns of the Tonden soldiers (屯田兵) and migration flows of their descendants, identifying the hometowns of Nikkei (日系人) who emigrated from Japan, as well as a study of population movements in local areas of Japan over the past fifteen years, linking them to the census data at town and village levels.

Finally, Professor Yano is pursuing the possibility of digital humanities research on surnames, including the relationship between surnames and the name of places.

<Access the Surname Map>

<Access the UK project 'Named by PublicProfiler' of University College London (UCL)>

The Surname Map has been created by Ritsumeikan University in cooperation with Acton Winds Co., Ltd.

Further reading:

1. Cheshire, James A., Paul A. Longley, Keiji Yano, and Tomoya Nakaya. "Japanese surname regions." Papers in Regional Science 93 (2014): 539-555. https://doi.org/10.1111/pirs.12002.

2. Longley, Paul. A., Alex D. Singleton, Keiji Yano, and Tomoya Nakaya. "Lost in Translation: Cross-Cultural Experiences in Teaching Geo-Genealogy." Journal of Geography in Higher Education 34, no. 1 (2010): 21-38. https://doi.org/10.1080/03098260902982476.

3. Yano, Keiji. "GIS based Japanese family name maps and their potential in Geographic Information Science." Jinmoncom (2007): 47-54. http://id.nii.ac.jp/1001/00100574/. (in Japanese with English abstract)

Project Overview:
At the center of this project, which involved Bachelor and Master students of Japanology at Goethe University Frankfurt, was the On Edo ezu (御江戸絵図) from the ARC database 'Maps of Japan from the Collection of Sir Hugh and Lady Cortazzi'.
Drawing on maps, guidebooks, and colored woodblock prints, this project attempted to correlate various sources of both geographical and visual experience and knowledge to hypothetically reconstruct how they might have shaped the late Edo period consumer's consciousness based on the materials accessible to them.
→ Click here to access the project website.

Professor Kinski, thank you very much for your time. As the leader of the FY2020 ARC-iJAC project 'Edo Period Map goes Digital - The On Edo ezu as an Interactive Resource', could you tell us about your motivation to start this project?

Prof. Kinski: I began to develop a strong interest in Digital Humanities (DH) in 2012 when I saw a presentation by Bettina Gramlich-Oka--a colleague at Sophia University--about creating an interactive biographic database as part of her interest in social network analysis.

Striving to incorporate text mining, topic modeling, or semantic network analysis in my approach to Edo period intellectual history, I have been making efforts to raise the interest amongst students in the approaches towards Japanese sources derived from DH.

Frankfurt University owns a small collection of printed books covering the period between 1650 and 1850, our 'Edo bunko' which we use for exercises in the classroom to decipher and transcribe larger quantities of text.

A talented student of mine, Koray Birenheide, created a program called 'DemiScript' that allows us to work with source material--whether premodern, modern, textual or visual--and to present the results of our transcription efforts. A far more advanced tool than expected, I was convinced it could serve as a platform for a larger, more ambitious classroom project.

The ARC-iJAC provided a timely opportunity to put our plan into action by drawing on the materials in the ARC databases and combining the first-hand exploration of primary sources with concerns from urban infrastructure history and art history.

So, the purpose of your project was largely educational?

Prof. Kinski: Yes, our project was not devised as a research project as such. Its paramount aim was to bring students into contact with primary source materials.

Most project participants neither had training in 'classical' Japanese, such as kobun classes (古文), nor Edo period Japanese or had encountered Edo-period script and what often is called 'hentaigana'.

Furthermore, I wanted to provide students with an outline of Edo-period urbanity, urban infrastructure, the representation of geography in the context of a 2D map, and the solutions chosen by the editors for this purpose.

A secondary effect of this project was the in-depth study of the On Edo ezu in a language other than Japanese and the correlation between the map and Hiroshige's ukiyo-e prints--two media available in the Tenpō period to find spatial and temporal orientation.

The students identified and linked Hiroshige's choice in scenic spots and famous places to their counterpart sites on the map. This way, we could verify the exactitude of both the map and the prints and get an idea of what kind of materials were available for Edo-period inhabitants and travelers to find their way around.

How do you feel about the execution of the project, and what kind of feedback did you get from your students?

Prof. Kinski: At first, I naively thought that integrating questions and methods derived from DH would meet with a positive echo amongst students. However, despite the ubiquitous talk about living in the digital age, most of them did not immediately share my enthusiasm for DH in studying Edo Japan.

The On Edo ezu project served to overcome these reservations towards using computer-based approaches to explore Edo Japan and strengthen their intrinsic motivation to learn about Japan's past rather than contemporary Japan.

And indeed, this project turned out to provide fun, insight, and the feeling of exploration and discovery for most of my students. Organized in small groups working on a well-defined target independently, they have expressed in their end-term evaluation that this was a new and satisfying experience learning about premodern Japan.

I hope that the project has also encouraged them to find an individual creative niche for themselves and their study interests in the future.

How did you connect with the ARC-iJAC?

Prof. Kinski: My original interests lie in the Edo-period intellectual and cultural history. Although my connection to Ritsumeikan University goes back to 1990, I only became fully aware of the ARC when I got invited by Andrew Gerstle (SOAS) to join his ARC-iJAC project Cultural Salons and Visual Arts in Kyoto and Osaka, 1750--1900.

This project encompassed the idea of exploring 'networks', and I was investigating Kaiho Seiryô (1755-1817) and his social network as part of this.

The project was the starting shot for what I considered a major discovery for me. Besides providing me the opportunity to explore Seiryô as a bunjin (文人) who was active in salons in Kyoto around 1810 and made the acquaintance of other bunjin painters, it also gave me a chance to see some of the works of Seiryô in private collections.

I am grateful to Ryo Akama, Andrew Gerstle as well as the ARC resources that have allowed me to pursue my interest in Seiryô as a bunjin and to set his works and endeavors in perspective.

Concluding this interview, is there anything else you would like to comment on?

Prof. Kinski: I hope that such research endeavors as pursued by the ARC and ARC-iJAC can continue in the future without the worry of financial resources. Bringing people together in international, interdisciplinary projects like this is of utmost importance.

→ Click here to access the project website.

The Art Research Center (ARC), Ritsumeikan University, is pleased to announce the launch of the Sumo Digital Institute within the ARC Virtual Institute, along with the release of the online database of the Teiji Kojima Collection--a treasure trove of sumo banzuke and old sumo documents.

The ARC has been working to create a digital archive of materials related to the history of sumo collected by the late Teiji Kojima, a renowned scholar of sumo history. Along with the release of his collection in June, we decided to publish the results of our research in sumo history under the Sumo Digital Institute.

The Teiji Kojima Collection consists of approximately 1,000 paper documents and dozens of volumes of old sumo-related materials, mainly sumo banzuke, covering a total of 264 years from 1742 (mid-Edo period) to 2006. These digital images are now accessible online at any time.

In addition to browsing the digitized materials, the Sumo Digital Institute offers an online exhibition. It is an attempt to bring to light the many facets of Edo-period kanjin-zumo tournaments by picking up sumo-related articles from the Bukō nenpyō--a compilation of Edo-period events in chronological order--and linking them to sumo banzuke related to the events from the Teiji Kojima Collection, ukiyo-e prints in the Ukiyo-e Portal Database, and materials from the Early Japanese Books Database.

We hope that this online exhibition will encourage people to take an interest in the world of kanjin-zumo that is very different from today.

The exhibition not only links to the Kojima Collection but also to sumo paintings in the Japanese Collection of the Museum Volkenkunde, Leiden, available in the ARC Virtual Institute.

The ukiyo-e paintings that traveled to the Netherlands as soon as they were published are beautiful and well-preserved, retaining their original colors. We hope you enjoy them.

The Sumo Digital Institute strives to collect a wide range of visual data and literary materials about sumo from the Edo period to the modern era and make them available to the public through a digital archive. We hope to raise the public's interest in sumo by releasing these rare sumo materials. [Person in charge: Nozomu Ataka]

The Art Research Center (ARC), Ritsumeikan University, is pleased to announce the release of the Asahi Shimbun Collection of Shibai Banzuke (Kabuki Playbills), held by the Osaka Prefectural Nakanoshima Library, in our Shibai Banzuke (Kabuki Playbills) Portal Database.

Since the Edo Period, flyers, posters, and programs of kabuki and jōruri plays have provided detailed information about actors, names of the cast, and the content of those plays at that time.

The materials, originally cataloged in the Asahi Shimbun bunko mokuroku (「朝日新聞」文庫目録), were published by the Osaka Prefectural Nakanoshima Library in March 1970. With the permission of the library, the Art Research Center has digitized the materials and re-examined the catalog data, making the images online available through the ARC Shibai Banzuke Database System.

By the end of 2017, the ARC had released around 700 un-cataloged items from the library. This time, we added 1,443 banzuke, bringing the total number of items available in our online database to 2,129.

You can either access these materials from the Osaka Prefectural Nakanoshima Library's website under 'Various Catalogs and Databases' or the ARC Shibai Banzuke Portal Database by selecting the holding institution 'Osaka Prefectural Nakanoshima Library'.

Our Shibai Banzuke Portal Database also comprises banzuke held by other institutions, thus allowing you to browse and compare to find supplementary information.

Furthermore, the Shibai Banzuke Catalog of the Osaka Prefectural Nakanoshima Library, published in October 1968, contains approximately 2,500 items other than the above, which will be digitized in our third project next year. We hope to complete a large-scale database with almost 4,600 items within three years.