"Digital Humanities Center for Japanese Arts and Cultures" Project
The "Digital Humanities Center for Japanese Arts and Cultures" project is an undertaking by Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto that stems from the 21st COE Program Kyoto Art Entertainment Innovation Research project which has resulted in digital archives and databases of tangible and intangible cultural assets related to Kyoto and Japanese culture with the aim of integrating humanities and information technology. The project has already achieved top national level with over 1 million data entries, and with information technologies such as multimedia digital archiving greatly enhancing research environments and methods and acting as information and social portals, the project shown that our Center has the potential to become a hub for institutes of Japanese research worldwide.
In the west the academic field called Digital Humanities has been established to harness digital technologies in humanities research. This is precisely what we aim to develop through the activities of the Digital Humanities Center for Japanese Arts and Cultures. Currently, research on Japanese culture overseas is heading further towards network-oriented undertakings, greatly dividing Japanese and overseas researchers in terms of research methodology and objectives.
With such world cutting-edge research trend in mind, the ARC focuses on becoming an educational center based on the graduate school and nurturing researchers of Japanese culture who are competent to conduct research overseas with a global viewpoint. Through this concept, we are literally developing globally with plans to collaborate with top-class research institutes and museums, including the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, the British Museum, and the Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies at Columbia University.
Digital Humanities Center for Japanese Art and Cultures FY 2024 "Support Program for Research Center Formation" Research Project
| No. | Project Title/Affiliation/Name |
|---|---|
| 1 | Acoustic digital archive for preserving cultural properties Project |
| Professor, College of Information Science and Engineering, RU Takanobu NISHIURA | |
| 2 | Verification of Games for Change by Generative AI |
| Professor, College of Information Science and Engineering, RU THAWONMAS Ruck | |
| 3 | Reconstruction of "Virtual Kyoto" and Studies on the Urban History of modern Kyoto |
| Professor, College of Letters, RU Naomi KAWASUMI | |
| 4 | Kyoto Street Culture Archive - Visualization & Memory of Pop culture featuring the town - Project |
| Assoc. Professor, College of Image Arts and Sciences, RU Shinya SAITO | |
| 5 | Constructing an international world of Japanese cultural studies |
| Professor, College of Letters, RU Ryo AKAMA | |
| 6 | Project of Developing Multilingual Data Integration Infrastructure for Cultural Resource Databases Project |
| Professor, College of Information Science and Engineering, RU Akira MAEDA | |
| 7 | Digital Design for Organization and Social Utilization of Visual and Cultural Resources |
| Professor, College of Image Arts and Sciences, RU Akinori NAKAMURA |
| No. | Collaboration Project Title | Individual Project Title | Affiliation/Name |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Design of speech recognition system for ancient texts and speech input system for KUZUSHIJI transcription | Acoustic digital archive for preserving cultural properties | |
| Constructing an international world of Japanese cultural studies | Ryo AKAMA, Professor, College of Letters, ARC, RU | ||
| 2 | Developing a Utilization Environment for the Biographical Databases related to Traditional Japanese Theatre | Project of Developing Multilingual Data Integration Infrastructure for Cultural Resource Databases Project | |
| Constructing an international world of Japanese cultural studies | Ryo AKAMA, Professor, College of Letters, ARC, RU |
Research Project to Utilize the Center's Facilities and Equipment
| No. | Project Title/Affiliation/Name |
|---|---|
| 1 | The 2000s Web Content Archiving Project |
| Professor, Graduate School of Core Ethics and Frontier Sciences, RU Yumi TAKENAKA | |
| 2 | The Diversity of Yuzen Workshops - The Actual Situation of Yuzen Workshops Supporting the Performing Arts - |
| Professor, College of Letters, RU Masaaki KIDACHI | |
| 3 | A Collection of Hand-Painted Movie Posters and Signs in Kyoto |
| Professor, College of Image Arts and Sciences, RU Shosaku TAKEDA | |
| 4 | Database construction of the wall relief of the Borobudur Temple, Indonesia |
| Professor, College of Information Science and Engineering, RU Satoshi TANAKA | |
| 5 | A study on the unpublished manuscripts of Kato Shuichi: A History of Japanese Literature |
| Researcher, Kinugasa Research Organization, RU Yuko HANDA | |
| 6 | Analysis of paper-backed documents held by Ritsumeikan Archive Center |
| Associate Professor, College of Letters, RU Tetsuya TANI |
