Successful Sakoku?
Talking about the semi-seclusion policies of the Tokugawa polity in class recently, and a student asked “was it a successful policy?” I had already ...
Author: Jonathan Dresner
Breaking News: WWII won’t go away
OK, that’s not all that surprising at this point. But I was a bit taken aback when three articles all about separate aspects of WWII in Japan showed up in...
A New Constitution for Japan?
I love constitutions. They’re great texts for teaching, they are fantastic touchstones for discussion and, of course, they are crucial to the definition o...
Iris Chang’s Death
Iris Chang is dead, apparently by her own hand as a result of depression. Her work on the Nanjing Massacre brought her fame and attention, of all kinds. She was...
Farewell, Soseki
I’m going to miss Natsume Soseki. I know, he’s been dead for a long time (are there any plans in the works for centennial editions or celebrations, ...
Why I love classical literature
From Yoshida Kenkō’s Tsurezuregusa, aka Essays in Idleness (Stephen Carter translation in McCullough’s Classical Japanese Prose, p. 416) 189 Today y...
Minamata Justice
Japan’s Supreme Court ordered the government to pay compensation to additional victims of one of the most egregious and troubling cases of environmental i...
Why did the Mongols Attack Hakata Bay Twice?
I’ve been doing Japanese history for fifteen years, now, and Chinese history for a decade, and I’ve never figured out why the Mongols, after their f...
Translation Prize and Gatekeeper Issues
A colleague of mine, Prof. Larry Rogers, just won the 2004 Keene Center translation award for his book of translations of modern stories about Tokyo neighborhoo...
Japanese Pride and Influence
If you’ve studied Japan for even a few years, it becomes clear that Japanese are very sensitive about Nobel prizes. They haven’t won a lot of them, ...
Joint Press Conference Predictions: Little Asia
It’s not a debate, in any meaningful sense of the word, unless they break the rules. It’s a joint press conference, and the only thing that makes it...
Self-Introduction: Luck and Curiousity
My name is Jonathan Dresner, and I consider myself a very lucky man. I had no particular interest in Japan or history in High School, until I spent a year in Na...