PMJS Publication Announcement: December 2025

[Abigail MacBain]

Dear colleagues,

Below please find our monthly bulletin compiling information on publications by and recommendations from PMJS members. All details below were submitted through the PMJS Publication Announcements online form.

Publication type: Book

Title: Everyday People in Early Modern Kyoto: Family, Firm and Community

Author: Mary Louise Nagata

Affiliation: Francis Marion University, Professor Emeritus

Summary: Written in 3 parts. Part 1 is an urban history discussing the historical background of Kyoto neighborhoods, the system of assistance for households in need, the political administration of the neighborhoods in the city, and relations of property between individuals, their neighborhoods and their family business networks. Part 2 is a demographic history addressing age at marriage, the life course, life-cycle employment, migration, fertility, adoption, mobility, mortality and population change. Part 3 focuses on household, family, and family business networks. All parts address the questions of gender, and include many case study stories and documents in translation. This is a research book written, nevertheless, for the amateur or freshman.

Release Date: July 26, 2025

Website: Routledge, but also available on Amazon in hardback, paperback, and electronic (including Kindle) editions

DOI: 10.4324/9781003385530 

Contact: Mary Louise Nagata mnag...@gmail.com 

Publication type: Article

Title: "Intercultural Intrareligious Exchanges in the Life and Poetry of the Japanese Zen Monk Zekkai Chūshin 絶海中津 (1336-1405)"

Author: Paul Atkins

Affiliation:University of Washington, Seattle; Professor

Citation: Yazhou wenming shi yanjiu 亞洲文明史研究 (Studies in the History of Asian Civilizations), no. 3, pp. 250-65.

Summary: Zekkai Chūshin is celebrated for his high proficiency in composing Chinese poetry; the close ties he formed with Chinese monks during his eight-year residence at temples in Hangzhou and other sites at the beginning of the Ming dynasty, culminating in a private audience with the Hongwu 洪武Emperor (1328-98; r. 1368-98) at his palace in Nanjing; and the high ecclesiastical offices Zekkai attained after his return to Japan.

This paper focusses on Zekkai's relationships with three Chinese counterparts, Jitan Zongle 季潭宗泐 (1318-91), Jianxin Laifu見心來復 (1319-92), and Dao Yan 道衍 (lay name Yang Guangxiao 姚廣孝, 1335-1418). All three appear in Zekkai's collected poems, but they followed different destinies after Zekkai's return to Japan. These interactions shed light on the role of Buddhist institutions and individual clerics in facilitating religious, diplomatic, and economic exchanges across cultural, linguistic, and national boundaries.

十四世纪期间，中日之间进行了人员、思想和物品的广泛交流，其中许多是通过由两国佛教僧侣组成的交替官方使团进行的，这些僧侣通过他们共同的语言（书面汉语）和宗教（禅宗）促进了外交和经济交流。许多僧侣来自精英临济禅宗寺庙，这些寺庙构成了基于中国模式的五山体系。

在前往中国的日本僧侣中，绝海中津（1336-1405）因其高超的汉诗创作能力而备受赞誉；他在明朝初期在杭州及其他地方的寺庙居住的八年期间，与中国僧侣建立了密切的联系，并在南京皇宫与洪武皇帝（1328-98；1368-98在位）进行了私人会面；绝海回到日本后获得了高教会职务。事实上，作为将军足利义满（1358-1408）的亲密顾问，绝海参与了十五世纪初中日官方关系的短暂恢复。

本文将尝试通过关注绝海与三位中国僧侣的关系来说明这些国际宗教内部交流的性质，即季潭宗泐（1318-91）、见心来复（1319-92）和道衍（俗名姚广孝，1335-1418）。这三位僧侣都出现在绝海的诗集中，但他们在绝海回到日本后命运各不相同。这些互动揭示了佛教机构和个人僧侣在促进跨文化、语言和国家边界的宗教、外交和经济交流中的作用。

Release Date: November, 2025

Website:https://www.ssap.com.cn

Publication type: Article

Title: Contesting the “Classical,” Creating Communities: The “Intercollegiate Classical Japanese Poetry Contest” within the Landscape of 2020s North American Bungo Pedagogy

Author: Marjorie Burge, Jeffrey Niedermaier, Pier Carlo Tommasi

Affiliation:University of Colorado Boulder, Brown University, Vassar College

Citation: Japanese Language and Literature 59:2, pp. 307–349

Summary: On December 6, 2022, the authors convened the first virtual “Intercollegiate Classical Japanese Poetry Contest”—also known as Reiwa yonen sankō jūsanban utaawase 令和四年三校十三番歌合 (Three-Schools Poetry Contest in Thirteen Rounds in the Fourth Year of Reiwa)—between our first-semester students of classical Japanese language (bungo). The contest is shaping up to be an annual event, with sequels involving a new set of institutions held in 2023 and 2024. This paper presents our reflections on this project, including its genesis, its outcomes, and its prospects. In addition to exploring the value of creative composition in classical language education, we argue that such approaches challenge the perception of bungo as “dead,” and we outline the process we undertook to incorporate this particular assignment into coursework and class time. Within the landscape of bungo pedagogy in North America, experimental approaches such as our contest promise to foster community, enrich understanding of bungo, and bolster student interest in classical language and culture.

Release Date: 11/2025

Website:https://jll.pitt.edu/ojs/JLL/article/view/373 

DOI:https://doi.org/10.5195/jll.2025.373

Contact:Pier Carlo Tommasi ptom...@vassar.edu 

Publication type: Article

Title: Mono ga kataru senran: Tōken setsuwa “Aranami” to kioku no yukue モノが語る戦乱―刀剣説話「荒波」と記憶の行方―

Author: Pier Carlo Tommasi

Affiliation: Vassar College

Language: Japanese

Summary: This paper brings medieval Japanese autobiography into conversation with material culture and memory studies. Focusing on a sword legend found in Tanamori Fusaaki’s (1495–1590) memoir, it examines how swords functioned not only as weapons on the battlefield but also as archival and literary objects. By tracing the material and narrative drifts of a storied blade named Aranami (“wild waves”), the paper shows how objects can drive personal storytelling while shaping collective remembrance.

Release Date: 8/2025

Website:http://www.kyuko.asia/book/b667693.html

Contact:Pier Carlo Tommasi ptom...@vassar.edu 

To recommend a title for the January announcement, please fill out the online form no later than December 30. Submissions can be submitted by authors themselves or by PMJS members who are eager to share other scholars’ recent publications. 

For any questions or comments on the submission format, please contact Abigail MacBain (abigail...@ed.ac.uk). Note: Please do not email requesting a publication to be posted; only those submitted through the above form will be listed.

[Monica Bethe]

Dear All, 

I would like to add a recent publication.

Book title

Fashioning a New Look for the Meiji Empress and Japan

Stories of a Court Dress Revealed During Conservation

Published simultaneously with its Japanese version

『皇后がまとう明治の美　―大礼服修復の歩み』

Author Monica Bethe, with Joanna Marschner and Sharon Takeda

Edited by The Project to Research Conserve, and Preserve Empress Shōken’s Court Dress

Publisher: Medieval Japanese Studies Institute, Kyoto

Distributed by Mitsumura Suiko Shoin, September 2025

Available internationally through Amazon.co.jp

Language   English or Japanese (two books)

Release date  September 2025

Summary   From a single dress, a story expands to the highest political figures of the Meiji period down to the artisans who faced modernization with innovation. The dress comes to symbolize the courage of the empress, the drama as Japan steps out on the global stage, and a web of weavers, embroiders, producers of silk, tailors, couture specialists, and cultural advisors.

The complexity of the dress’s history emerged bit-by-bit during a much-needed conservation. With each beautifully illustrated page, layer by layer, the challenges, choices, and discoveries arising from the meticulous conservation work unfold.

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[Raji Steineck]

Dear All,

if you allow for another addition:

Book title: Zen Time. Dōgen's Uji in Context.

Author: Raji C. Steineck

Publisher: SUNY Press

Info: https://sunypress.edu/Books/Z/Zen-Time

Release date: September 2025

Publisher's announcement:

"In Zen Time, Raji C. Steineck provides a robust contextualization of Dōgen's Uji, the most renowned text on time in Zen Buddhism. Situating the text within the historical context of the medieval Zen master's writing, Steineck illustrates how Dōgen shaped the rhythm of life in the Zen monastery to actualize his idea that time in itself is salvific. Dōgen was meticulous in his observation of the particulars of each temporal moment, regarding them as an opportunity to bring together interrelated tenets of Buddhist doctrine and practice. In contrast to readings that equate the Zen approach to time with "living the moment" and that pit qualitative understandings of time against quantitative understandings, Steineck shows how Dōgen was able to connect time's qualitative and quantitative aspects in a way that, despite its mystical elements, remains instructive in relation to contemporary secular and philosophical discussions. The book includes a translation of Uji in an appendix."

If I may say so, the hardcover is a nice book to hold in your hands, but it comes at a rather hefty price. The paperback is announced for March 2026. Furthermore, thanks to the generosity of the good citizens of Switzerland and their Swiss National Science Foundation, an OA version is available under:

https://soar.suny.edu/handle/20.500.12648/17053

Kind regards,

Raji Steineck

[Lisa Kochinski]

Dear Dr. Steineck,

Congratulations on the publication of your book Zen Time, and thank you for providing access to the OA version. I glanced quickly through the PDF and I already see that this is a book I will refer to many times for my own research on Zen ritual in medieval Japan. For this, however, I would prefer the hard cover version. The cost is prohibitive, as you already mentioned, but I thought I would alert others on the PMJS list who might be interested that SUNY Press is offering a significant 50% discount on all books, including yours. I've already ordered my copy.

Best wishes,

Lisa Kochinski

Lisa Kochinski, PhD
Visiting Scholar

University of Southern California

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