PMJS Publication Announcement: February 2026
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: Article
Title: An Ignored Archive, Accidental Archives, and Sacred Trash: Japan’s Shōsōin in the Comparative Middle Ages
Author: Bryan Lowe
Affiliation: Princeton University, Associate Professor
Summary: This short article advocates for a return to comparative history, rather than global history, which I suggest is of limited use for premodern studies. I look at three impressive collections of manuscripts: Japan's Shōsōin, Dunhuang’s so-called library cave, and the Cairo Geniza. In doing so, I highlight a previously neglected but uniquely rich archive in global medieval studies (the Shōsōin) and offer a theory for the survival of premodern archives that attends to the importance of “sacred trash.”
Release Date: January 2026
Website:https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/738115
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1086/738115
Contact:Bryan Lowe, bdl...@princeton.edu
Publication type: Essay
Title: Reflections on Esoteric Hegemony in Medieval Japan and the Modern Academy
Author: Bryan Lowe
Affiliation:Princeton University, Associate Professor
Citation: “Reflections on Esoteric Hegemony in Medieval Japan and the Modern Academy.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 52 (2025): 127–143.
Summary: This review essay examines four recent titles that deal with esoteric Buddhism in medieval Japan: Kamakura Bukkyō: Mikkyō no shiten kara (Daizō Shuppan, 2023); Rituals of Initiation and Consecration in Premodern Japan: Power and Legitimacy in Kingship, Religion, and the Arts (De Gruyter, 2022); Esoteric Pure Land Buddhism (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2023); and Esoteric Zen: Zen and the Tantric Teachings in Premodern Japan (Brill, 2023). They all helpfully challenge sectarian narratives by showing how esoteric Buddhism permeated various medieval schools. In doing so, these works build upon Kuroda Toshio’s idea of a hegemonic exoteric-esoteric system (kenmitsu taisei), a concept now fifty years old. While Kuroda’s ongoing influence on recent scholarship, including the volumes under review, has been a net positive, my essay raises questions about the definition and coherence of the term “esoteric Buddhism.” It also encourages future scholars to examine other non-esoteric aspects of medieval Japanese religions.
Release Date: 2025
Website:https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/journal/6/issue/355/article/2442
DOI:dx.doi.org/10.18874/jjrs.52.2025.127-143
Contact: Bryan Lowe, bdl...@princeton.edu
Publication type: Article
Title: Planned, Yet Improvised: Shimotsuma Shōshin’s Performance Notes on Late-sixteenth-century Japanese Nō Theatre
Author: Eike Grossmann
Affiliation: University of Hamburg, Prof. Dr.
Citation: Grossmann, Eike (2026): "Planned, Yet Improvised: Shimotsuma Shōshin’s Performance Notes on Late-sixteenth-century Japanese Nō Theatre", in Accumulating Notes: Note-taking and Multilayered Written Artefacts, ed. by José Maksimczuk and Thies Staack. Berlin: de Gruyter (Studies in Manuscript Cultures; 49).
Summary: "Focusing on the note-taking practices of the Buddhist monk Shimotsuma
Shōshin (1551–1616), this chapter offers a new perspective on the manuscript culture of Japanese nō theatre. After outlining the various types of performers and
how they have contributed to the development of written artefacts on nō, it introduces Shimotsuma Shōshin as a political stakeholder and provides an overview of
his nō manuscripts. The paper then proceeds to analyse his notebook on nō performance, the Gyūren e tou nikki (Journal with Questions to Gyūren, c. 1582), and
shows that this planned, yet improvised project was written during conversations
with the professional performer Konparu Yoshikatsu (1510–1583). It argues that its
nature as a pre-designed, open primary layer allowed the author-scribe to add
several secondary layers, turning it into an exceptional written artefact for personal use."
Release Date: 2025 / 2026
Website: https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783111682990/html
Contact:Eike Grossmann, eike.gr...@uni-hamburg.de
Notes: Open Access
Publication type: Article
Title: How to Commence a Cosmogony: Chinese encyclopedia, the making of the Nihon shoki, and Japanese source criticism.
Author: Robert F. Wittkamp
Affiliation: Kansai University
Citation: Orientierungen 36 (2025), pp. 19–54.
Summary: This article investigates the opening cosmogonic sentences of the Nihon shoki (720) and their Chinese sources, focusing on the interplay between direct quotation and encyclopedic mediation. While medieval commentaries and Edo-period scholarship linked these passages to the Huainanzi and the lost Sanwu liji, modern research emphasizes Chinese encyclopedias (leishu) such as Yiwen leiju, Xiuwendian yulan, and Hualin bianlüe. Through a review of reception history - from Heian court readings and the “preface theory” to the philological methods of the Shoki shikkai (1785) - the study highlights how layered citation practices shaped Japan’s earliest “correct history.” Rather than mere embellishment, the Nihon shoki’s cosmogony emerges as a deliberate synthesis of Chinese cosmological concepts, revealing historical consciousness and methodological challenges that continue to inform source-critical scholarship.
Release Date: December 2025
Website: Ostasien Verlag (note: direct article link not provided)
Contact: Robert F. Wittkamp witt...@kansai-u.ac.jp
Publication type: Article
Title: Spirituality in Response to Crisis: Ashikaga Yoshimochi’s Foreign Policy in East Asia
Author: Polina Barducci
Affiliation: University of Cambridge
Citation: Japan Review, Volume 40 (2025): 171-193
Summary: The rule of Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimochi witnessed a significant diplomatic crisis in the fifteenth century following the invasion of Tsushima by forces from Joseon Korea and the breaking-off of diplomatic relations with Ming China. The shogun renounced the title “King of Japan,” bestowed upon his predecessor by the Ming emperor, and used shinkoku rhetoric in official correspondence with the continent. This article reveals the reasons for Yoshimochi's stance, concealed within the ceremonial and ritual aspects of his rule. The article refutes the notion that the shogun demonstrated hostility towards foreigners caused by emerging national awareness. By examining visits of Korean envoys after the diplomatic crisis of 1419, this article outlines the transformation of diplomatic protocol from Ming-dominated tributary ceremonies to a framework of Buddhist cultural exchange.
Release Date: December 2025
Website: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/japanreview/40/0/40_2025.Barducci/_article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.69307/japanreview.2025.Barducci
Contact: Polina Barducci, ps...@cam.ac.uk
Publication type: Book
Title: Linked Verse in Medieval Japan: History, Commentary, Performance
Author: H. Mack Horton
Affiliation: University of California, Berkeley
Citation: Horton, H. Mack. Linked Verse in Medieval Japan: History, Commentary, Performance. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2025. 1120 pp.
Summary: Linked Verse in Medieval Japan: History, Commentary, Performance begins with a history of linked verse (renga), focusing on the golden age of the art in the medieval era but going back to its written beginnings and then progressing through Bashō. One theme throughout is the negotiation over the centuries between formal ushin and unorthodox haikai modalities. Part 1 is accompanied by a translation of Nijō Yoshimoto's Renri hishō (Private treatise on linked-verse principles), which includes an early version of the renga rules. Part 2 contains a concise overview of renga commentaries and a translation and exploration of one particularly erudite sequence, together with two coeval commentaries on it. Such commentaries help us approach the verses as they were read by contemporaries, while reminding us of the inevitable polysemy that lies at the heart of the renga enterprise. Part 3 explores the performative aspects of the renga session, and an epilogue traces the revival of renga studies in the Meiji era up to the present. Included in the backmatter are an abbreviated guide to renga rules, an introduction to linked verse in Japanese and Chinese (wakan renku), and an index to the more than 1000 verses translated in the text.
Release Date: 2025
Website: https://cup.columbia.edu/book/linked-verse-in-medieval-japan/9780231191142//
Contact: H. Mack Horton, hmho...@berkeley.edu
Publication type: Journal series
Title: Modalities of Secrecy in Japanese Buddhism
Author: Marta Sanvido
Affiliation: Yale University
Summary: A double issue containing seven articles focused on the theme of “Modalities of Secrecy in Japanese Buddhism.”
Release Date: 2026
Website: https://ebs.otani.ac.jp/journal.html
To recommend a title for next month’s announcement, please fill out the online form. 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.