PMJS Open House Notes

[Paula R. Curtis]

Dear all,

Thank you to everyone who joined us last week for the PMJS Open Houses. We were delighted to see so many familiar friends and colleagues as well as new faces! The first open house had approximately 27 attendees and the second approximately 24. Below is a brief summary of what was discussed for those who were unable to make it, including the presentations by PMJS members. 

Our first order of business was to briefly introduce the history of PMJS. PMJS was founded in 1999 and consisted of only 17 members! Today we boast over 1,500 subscribers, though the exact number of current members is hard to determine since this includes holders of multiple email accounts and some addresses which may no longer be active. It is clear, however, that we have gained more than 200 new subscribers over the past two years.

Christina and I then explained the structure, responsibilities, and activities of our current Moderation Team and Steering Committee Members (see attached images), as well as the reasons for creating these structures of accountability and support. The work of the Steering Committee has included reviewing and developing our Terms of Use and member guides and offering guidance on thorny issues encountered by the Moderation Team.

PMJS members may be interested in what happens after you click send a post and what role the Moderation Team plays. 

1. A member sends an email to pm...@googlegroups.com.
2. The email enters moderation, meaning it awaits approval or rejection by a moderator.
3. Moderators receive an email informing them of a pending PMJS message. They visit the webpage and review the email.
4. If there are no issues with the email, one of the moderators clicks "approve" and it arrives in your inbox! This is why there will always be some delay before your post is received by PMJS subscribers.
5. If there is an issue with the message (perhaps you meant it to be a private reply, perhaps you didn't sign your name and we don't know who you are, perhaps it violates the Terms of Use), then the Moderation Team will email one another and consult regarding the email content.
6. If the content is a simple error like an accidental “reply all,” moderators will usually email you via mod...@pmjs.org to confirm you were not emailing all subscribers and then reject the message.
7. If the content requires editing, this requires the message poster to edit and resend. The platform we use for PMJS (Google Groups) does not enable the Moderation Team to edit any messages. If edits are needed, the Mod Team rejects the email and contacts the person who posted the message, requesting changes so the new message may be reviewed.
8. The poster sends the email again and the process starts over!

We're deeply appreciative of the moderation efforts of David Eason, Nadia Kanagawa, Christina Laffin, and Hanna McGaughey for keeping things running smoothly. As a team, we try to ensure moderators are based primarily in different timezones so that messages can be checked and sent in a timely manner. 

Presentations

At each of the events we also heard short presentations on recent work/projects from PMJS members. 

Joseph T. Sorensen (University of California, Davis) informed us that he has completed a translation of Mumyōzōshi (The Untitled Book), which he is now preparing to submit for publication. An essential commentary on court life, tale literature, and much more, authored by Shunzei no Musume (ca. 1171–ca. 1252), the work encompasses 94 poems which have received renewed attention through this new translation. 

Chris Kern (Auburn University) introduced his Wikipedia-based translation project on the Gosenshū (Gosen wakashu) from the late 10th century. He seeks member advice regarding whether the current Wiki-based platform is the best fit for such a project and how these translations might be made more useful to the field at large in digital or analog formats.

Jonathan Lopez-Vera (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona) reports that he recently published Toyotomi Hideyoshi y los europeos: Portugueses y castellanos en el Japón samurái on the relationship between Hideyoshi and Europeans in the 16th century. He would love to hear any recommendations from list members about getting his book published in English to share his work more broadly. His previous book, A History of the Samurai: Legendary Warriors of Japan was published in English by Tuttle.

Pia Jolliffe (University of Oxford) is embarking on a new project related to the history of children and emotion, particularly in the later medieval period (though she's interested in others with similar approaches in and beyond the premodern. She is presently using diaries and other historical sources for her explorations. Those with an interest in this topic should get in touch with her.

Simone Müller (University of Zurich) introduced the Time in Medieval Japan project on symbolic and sociocultural interpretations of time. The project includes many different collaborators and has resulted in numerous publications and conferences. Current collaborators are interested in further exploring methods related to chronography, chronopoetics, chronopolicy, and more. Do check out their site.

At the end of each session I also provided a short presentation on premodern Japan-related hiring data from this past year, with some reflections on three-year trends. Because this is already a long email I'll summarize that information in a separate post soon.

Thank you again to everyone who took part and we encourage you to reach out to those who shared with us!

Best,

Paula

--

Paula R. Curtis

Yanai Initiative Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer

Department of Asian Languages & Cultures

University of California, Los Angeles

http://prcurtis.com/

[Paula R. Curtis]

Dear all,

A follow-up correction on the previously emailed Open House notes--I mistakenly referred to Simone's recent work as the Time in Medieval Japan project, but it is in fact a separate venture. My apologies to the team working on this exciting continuation of time exploration! Simone has kindly provided the following explanation of their current work:

The Project "Time and Emotion in Medieval Japanese Literature" (2023-2026) funded by the Swiss National Foundation is a follow-up project of the ERC Advanced Grant Project “Time in Medieval Japan” (2017-2023). TIMEJ undertook a systematic assessment of symbolic representations and social regulations of time in medieval Japanese social spheres, looking at time in temples, at the imperial court, the shogunate, markets, but also at body time, and exploring methods related to chronography, chronopoetics, chronopolicy

The New SNSF project Time and Emotion in Medieval Japanese Literature seeks to undertake a conceptual and discursive mapping of aesthetic objectivations of “temporal emotions” in medieval Japan (late 12^th to late 16^th centuries) on the basis of representative literary genres and using a set of methodological tools, which comprise narratology, cognitive linguistics, and historical discourse semantics, in order to produce a history of temporal emotions in Medieval Japan.

A Project Website will be available soon.

Best,

Paula