Monumenta Nipponica

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Monumenta Nipponica

description japanological scientific journal
First edition 1938
Frequency of publication half-yearly
Web link dept.sophia.ac.jp/monumenta
ISSN (print) 0027-0741

Monumenta Nipponica is a Japanology scholarly journal that publishes peer- reviewed articles and book reviews on topics related to Japanese society, culture, history, religion, literature, art, anthropology, and other topics related to Japanology and other Asian studies. Your contributions are mainly written in English.

It is affiliated with the Sophia University in Tokyo . It was published quarterly until 2007, and every six months since 2008 in May and November. Each issue includes three to four main articles on research by the article authors, as well as about ten to 15 reviews of recent Japan-related books.

history

Monumenta Nipponica was one of the earliest magazines in a Western language devoted exclusively to Japanese topics. It was founded in 1938 by a group of mainly European scholars at Sophia University. The first volumes show a clear connection between the authors and the Jesuits , since a large number of the early articles deal with the relationship between Japan of the “Christian” century (1550–1650) and the Catholic Church . However, this apparent bias did not limit the topics to just these questions, so that articles on literature, art, history, philosophy, science, ethnology, linguistics, music and politics were also published.

While the outward appearance of the magazine has more or less been preserved to this day, the content has changed. From the 1950s onwards, English replaced other languages ​​(mainly German), there was a shift in topics away from the earlier focus on Japan's relations with the Catholic Church, and the relationship also shifted from articles to more reviews.

role

Monumenta Nipponica has remained one of the most important journals in Japanology since its inception . Her strengths lie particularly in the subjects of literature, history and religion. The book reviews - often by leading scholars in the field - are important to Japanologists as they allow them to keep track of the latest developments in the field.

In addition to the English text in the footnotes, the editors provide Kanji for Japanese and Chinese words and terms in the text as well as extensive quotations from the original texts.

In addition, the journal regularly contains a short section for correspondence, which provides an open forum for academic debate. An occasional “Brief Notes” section provides information of current interest, such as: B. Statistics. Comments on the author are usually included at the beginning of each article. In addition to the recognized experts, it also offers space for the work of new scientists.

Older editions of Monumenta Nipponica are available from JSTOR and the newer editions are available from the Project Muse online database .

editor

Web links