Event: Showcasing the Japan Biographical Database (JBDB), 9 November 2024 @Sophia University

[Bettina Oka]

Dear colleagues,

We are pleased to announce our upcoming hybrid event at Sophia University, sponsored by the Institute of Comparative Culture, Sophia University.

Please mark your calendars.  

Showcasing the Japan Biographical Database (JBDB)

Place: In person (Sophia University: Bldg. 2, 4th Floor, Room 414) and on Zoom (for link see below)

Date: 9 November 2024

Time: 10:00 until 17:30 (Tokyo time) 

Zoom Link:  Topic: Showcasing the Japan Biographical Database (JBDB) Time: 9 Nov. 2024 (opens 09:30 AM) Tokyo https://sophia-ac-jp.zoom.us/j/91601237353

Meeting ID: 916 0123 7353  Passcode: 070578

The Japan Biographical Database (JBDB) is a bilingual, open access database aimed at accumulating information on historical figures and their biographical data related to Japan. Using a JavaScript web application, we have set up a PostgreSQL database based on the construction of the China Biographical Database (CBDB) to accumulate data and edit its functions. JBDB provides the base for network analysis, spatial analysis, and prosopography, as well as biographies. As of October 2024, about 15,000 historical figures have been added with a concentration in the Tokugawa and Meiji eras.  

The objective is to keep expanding the data by inviting related projects to join and share their materials on this platform. Currently, thirteen projects work independently with JBDB and the symposium will showcase some of them not last to illustrate how adjustable and diverse the components are. We also invited some other projects from which we have been learning or hope to do so in the future. 

Program:

1. Yoshitaka Yamamoto (NIJL): Visualizing the Jūjun kagetsu Album (1827)  

2. Jingyi Li (Occidental College): Networks of Profit in Nineteenth-Century Literati Network

3. Takahashi Yasuhiro (Tama University):  Rai Shunsui and Confucian Texts

4. Maki Nakai (Meiji University): The Origins and Development of Antiquarianism

5. Nadia Kanagawa: Challenges and Opportunities in Exploring the Networks of Izumi Province in the Diary of Kujō Masamoto, 150­1–1502

6. Iris Haukamp (TUFS): Early Films and Creative Chaos: Establishing Links and Lineages in Japanese Cinema

7. Nakamura Satoru (Historiographical Institute The University of Tokyo): Development of a Retrieval System Using NDLOCR for Print Images of the Historiographical Institute The University of Tokyo 

8. James Morris (Waseda University): Pre-Modern Christianity in Japan: The Limitations and Potentialities of Digital Methods

9. Marie Yasunaga (College of Japanese Language and Culture, Tsukuba University/Independent Scholar, the Netherlands): Gender in Early Modern Streets of Edo, Illuminated through Visual Annotation using IIIF

10. David Slater (Sophia University): Refugee Voices Japan

11. Anatole Bernet (Sciences Po Center for History, Paris): Academic Kinship and Endogamy among Imperial Japan’s Health Specialists

12. Leo Born (Qwyga): On the Road: Biographical Itineraries in the JBDB

We will give an update once the full program with details is up on the homepage.

*JBDB is one of the collaborative projects of  NIJL’s “Project to Build an International Collaborative Research Network for Pre-Modern Japanese Texts” https://www.nijl.ac.jp/pages/cijproject/index.html.

With best wishes and looking forward to seeing many of you,

Bettina Gramlich-Oka

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Bettina Gramlich-Oka
Professor, Japanese History
Faculty of Liberal Arts & Graduate School of Global Studies
Sophia University
7-1 Kioi-cho, Chiyoda-ku
Tokyo 102-8554
Tel: 81-(0)3-3238-4065
email: gramli...@sophia.ac.jp
Japan Biographical Database: jbdb.jp
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