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Japan Studies: Electronic Resources

Guide overview

This page includes two categories of resources: UNC-subscribed Materials and online resources. ​

  • UNC-subscribed Materials
  • Online Resource refers to materials that are accessible online but may not be available for full-text download. This applies to all forms of primary and secondary sources available at designated online collections and databases. 

Resource Catagory

UNC Subscribed Materials

General Databases

  • Empire Online
    Covering 500 years of the rise and fall of empires, featuring a wide variety of material including exploration journals & logs; correspondence; periodicals; diaries; government papers; missionary papers; travel writing; slave papers; memoirs; fiction; children's adventure stories; folk tales; exhibition catalogs; maps; marketing posters; photographs; and illustrations, with many in color.
  • JapanKnowledge
    Contains a number of reference sources in Japan including Encyclopedia Nipponica, Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan, Progressive Japanese-English/English-Japanese Dictionaries, Gendai Yogo No Kiso Chishiki, Nihon Jinmei Daijiten, recent issues of the Economist Japanese edition, and other full-text and partial full-text resources.
    (Note: limited to 1 user at a time.)
  • Nineteenth Century Collections Online
    A large, deep, and rich collection of primary sources documenting the 'long 19th Century.' Materials include books, newspapers, periodicals, diaries, photographs, pamphlets, maps, and more. See "About" within the database for fuller description. Also searchable from within: Gale Artemis: Primary Sources.

Academic publications

  • Asia-Studies Full-text Online
    A database for the study of modern Asia-Pacific. It brings together thousands of full-text reports covering 53 countries and a multitude of business, government, economic, and social issues. Country coverage includes all of Asia, Australia/New Zealand, the Americas Pacific Rim countries, and Pacific islands. Users can browse by country to find country specific annual statistical overviews.
  • Bibliography of Asian Studies 
    Citations to articles published worldwide from 1971 for East, Southeast and South Asia. Through the 1991 printed version, the BAS included citations to western-language periodical articles, individually authored monographs, chapters in edited volumes, conference proceedings, anthologies, and Festschriften, etc. Since 1992, newly published individual monographs are no longer being added to the database, and users seeking monographs are urged to consult other general resources and databases (such as RLIN, OCLC's WorldCat, etc.).
    (Note: some available for full-text download.)
  • Historical Abstracts
    Covering the history of the world from 1450 to the present (excluding the United States and Canada) and indexes nearly 2,300 journals in over 40 languages.
  • JSTOR
    Providing an image archive of important scholarly journal literature in nearly all the humanities and social sciences disciplines, international and foreign areas studies, and many of the sciences. Excludes the most recent 2-5 years of currently available journals.
  • MLA International bibliography
    A major index for literary criticism, linguistics, folklore & cultural studies. Includes articles from several thousand journals and series published worldwide. Also covers relevant monographs, working papers, proceedings, dissertations and bibliographies. Also searchable under "Criticism" within Literature Online.
  • Project Muse
    Providing access to important university press and other scholarly publisher e-journals mainly in the humanities and social science content for the scholarly community.

Government documents

  • Foreign Office Files for Japan, 1919-1952
    British Government documents dealing with Japan in the interwar period, during Word War II and during subsequent American occupation. Sourced from the FO 371 and FO 262 series at The National Archives, UK, in addition to a selection of FO 371 Far Eastern General sub-series, and Western and American Department papers.
  • Hathi Trust Digital Library
    Partnership of major libraries, Google, and Internet Archive providing millions of fulltext books and volumes of journals and other serials covering all subject and in many languages.
  • JapanKnowledge
    Contains a number of reference sources in Japan including Encyclopedia Nipponica, Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan, Gendai Yogo No Kiso Chishiki, recent issues of the Economist Japanese edition.

Newspapers database

  • Kikuzo II Visual 聞蔵 II(きくぞうツー)ビジュアル
    An online article database that permits easy investigation of past events. It is the largest newspaper article database in Japan, including 15 million articles and advertisements from its first edition in 1879 (Meiji 12) to today. From the Asahi Shimbun Company.
  • Nikkei Telecom
    Providing various business data on individual companies from corporate overview to financial and credit information, in Japanese. The site provides access to full-text search of major Japanese newspapers from the past 30 years, including profiles of 1.2 million public and private companies.

Private Papers

  • Meiji Japan
    Containing manuscripts for the study of Japan Meiji society, culture, ethnology, and education from the papers of Edward Sylvester Morse (1838-1925). The arrangement of the collection consists of fifteen series: Correspondence; Diaries; Scrapbooks; Natural History; Archaeology Field Work; Ethnology; Japanese Pottery; Lectures; Publications; Inventions; Materials Collected by Morse; Financial Records; Noise Abatement; Biographical and Personal; and Miscellaneous.

Books

Online Access Materials
Online Access Public Catalogs
Online Access Materials

Dissertation and Articles

  • CiNii NII学術情報ナビゲータ[サイニィ]
    CiNii (Scholarly and Academic Information Navigator, pronounced like "sigh-knee") is a database service which can be searched with academic information of articles, Books, Journals & Dissertations.
    (Note: Some items available for full-text download)
  • Database of Research on the Imjin War
    An output of the “Aftermath of the East Asian War of 1592-1598” project, designed and created with the support of the European Research Council. It brings together bibliographic information on modern books, articles, and dissertations relating to the Imjin War (also known as Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s Invasions of Korea) and to make that information available to scholars in one easily searchable location. As of April 2020, the database contains over 360 entries in nine languages, primarily English, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese.
  • Dissertation Review
    Features overviews of recently defended, unpublished doctoral dissertations (with a current focus on Chinese History, Japan Studies, and Korean Studies but with many more disciplines joining soon). The goal is to offer readers a glimpse of each disciplines immediate present by focusing on the window of time between dissertation defense and first book publication.
  • Kyoto University Doctoral Dissertation Database
    This database provides doctoral dissertations submitted to Kyoto University or, its predecessor, Kyoto Imperial University. Part of the doctoral dissertations are available in full text in the Kyoto University Research Information Repository (KURENAI).
  • UTokyo Repository 東京大学学術機関リポジトリ
    UTokyo Repository is the system to store and provide digital resources created by members of the University of Tokyo community. Its main purpose is to develop digital collections, make them available online, and preserve them for long-term access.
    (Note: Some items available for full-text download)

Journals 

  • The Journal of Japanese Studies (via Project Muse)
    The most influential journal dealing with research on Japan available in the English language. 
    (Note: Available issues from 2004 to present)
  • Kyoto Journal
    Founded in 1987, Kyoto Journal is an award-winning, volunteer-driven quarterly magazine presenting thought-provoking cultural and historical insights from Kyoto, Japan and all of Asia. Now the longest-established independent English publication in Japan.
  • Monumentum Nipponica (via Project Muse)
    One of the oldest English-language journals in the field of Asian Studies. Founded in 1938 and published semiannually by Sophia University. 
    (Note: Available issues form 2005 to present)
Online Access Materials
  • The Association of Asian Studies (AAS)
    The Association for Asian Studies (AAS) is a scholarly, non-political, non-profit professional association open to all persons interested in Asia and the study of Asia. With approximately 6,500 members worldwide, representing all the regions and countries of Asia and all academic disciplines, the AAS is the largest organization of its kind.
  • The European Association of Japanese Studies
    Established in 1973 by a group of European scholars in the field of Japanese studies in order to facilitate international academic exchange across national borders.
  • H-Asia (Asian History and Studies)
    The primary purpose of H-ASIA is to enable historians and other Asia scholars to easily communicate current research and teaching interests; to discuss new articles, books, papers, approaches, methods and tools of analysis; to test new ideas and share comments and tips on teaching.
  • H-Japan
    An international, nonpartisan electronic discussion group, providing academics a free daily forum to discuss Japanese history, culture, religion, and society, including contemporary political, diplomatic, security, and economic issues.
  • H-US-Japan 
    An edited, international, nonpartisan list that provides scholars, graduate students, politicians, journalists, policy-makers, researchers, professionals, and others a free daily forum to discuss US-Japan relations in the context of economic, security, political, and diplomatic issues.
  • Japan Art History Forum (JAHF)
    Affiliated with two professional societies in the United States, the College Art Association and the Association for Asian Studies. Membership is open to anyone worldwide with a serious scholarly interest in the study of Japanese art history, visual and material culture, including faculty and graduate students in art history and related fields, museum professionals, independent scholars, and serious collectors.
  • Japan Foundation 国際交流基金
    The Japan Foundation is Japan's only institution dedicated to carrying out comprehensive international cultural exchange programs throughout the world.
    (Note: For list of Associations & Institutions of Japanese Studies on the Japan Foundation website, see here.)
  • Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science 日本学術振興会
    An independent administrative institution that promotes science and humanities fields in Japan.
  • Japan Studies Association
    Since its foundation in 1994, the JSA has assisted its members – primarily teachers from American colleges and universities – to acquire first-hand knowledge about Japan and infuse it into the curriculum of their home institutions.
  • Premodern Japanese studies (PMJS)
    A worldwide network of scholars, students, and professionals who research premodern Japan. With over 1000 members from more than 40 countries, PMJS is the largest and most diverse academic network dedicated specifically to premodern Japan.
Online Access Materials

Online Access Materials

Arts

  • Open F|S (Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M Sackler Gallery)
    The Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M Sackler Gallery contain some of the most important holdings of Asian art in the world. Together, both Galleries form the national museums of Asian art at the Smithsonian and are dedicated to the acquisition, care, study, and exhibition of works in their collections. Open F|S is the complete digitized collections of the Freer and Sackler Galleries and the Freer Study Collection. With more than 40,000 works being made available for high-resolution download, images can be used for all non-commercial purposes, from desktop wallpapers to artistic gifts for family and friends.

Images

Japanese American Studies

  • Japanese American Relocation Digital Archives
    Containing thousands of primary sources documenting Japanese American internment, including: Personal diaries, letters, photographs, and drawings; US War Relocation Authority materials, including camp newsletters, final reports, photographs, and other documents relating to the day-to-day administration of the camps; and personal histories documenting the lives of the people who lived in the camps, as well as of the administrators who created and worked there.

Teaching Resources

  • Meiji at 150 Digital Teaching Resources
    Collections include Lecture Series, Workshop Series, Digital Teaching Resource, and Podcast Series, interrogating Japan’s position in global history along with the place of the Meiji Restoration in Japanese historical pedagogy. From the University of British Columbia: the Centre for Japanese Research, the Department of History, the Department of Asian Studies, and the Asian Library
  • MIT Visualizing Cultures
    Topical units to date focus on Japan in the modern world and early-modern China. The thrust of these explorations extends beyond Asia per se, however, to address "culture" in much broader ways—cultures of modernization, war and peace, consumerism, images of "Self" and "Others," and so on. From Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Natural Disasters


Japanese Universities Digital Collections