Showcasing the Japan Biographical Database (JBDB)

Sophia Research Week presents the International Symposium

Showcasing the Japan Biographical Database (JBDB)

Sponsored by the Institute of Comparative Culture, Sophia University

Space

Place: In person (Sophia University: Bldg. 2, 4th Floor, Room 414) and on Zoom (opens 09:30 AM, JST: https://sophia-ac-jp.zoom.us/j/91601237353; Meeting ID: 916 0123 7353; Passcode: 070578)

Date: 9 November 2024

Time: 10:00 until 17:30

Lunchtime: 13:00 until 14:00

Coffeetime: 16:00 until 16:15

Small Reception: 17:30 until 19:00 (“Wine and cheese”) @ 13–304

Space

The Japan Biographical Database (JBDB) is a bilingual, open-access database aimed at collecting information on historical figures and their biographical data related to Japan. Using a JavaScript web application, we have set up a PostgreSQL database based on the construction of the China Biographical Database (CBDB) to accumulate data and edit its functions. JBDB provides the basis for network analysis, spatial analysis, and prosopography, as well as biographies. As of October 2024, about 15,000 historical figures have been added, with a focus on the Tokugawa and Meiji eras. 

The goal is to continue to expand the data by inviting related projects to join and share their materials on this platform. Currently, thirteen projects are working independently with JBDB, and the symposium will feature some of them to illustrate how adaptable and diverse the components are. We have also invited some other projects from which we have learned or hope to learn in the future.

Space

Program: (asterisk = online only) 

10:00

10:05

Introduction

Bettina Gramlich-Oka

10:10

10:25

  

Yoshitaka Yamamoto*

10:30

10:45

Jingyi Li*

10:50

11:05

Discussion

  

11:05

11:20

  

Yasuhiro Takahashi*

11:25

11:40

Maki Nakai

11:45

12:00

Discussion

  

12:05

12:20

  

Nadia Kanagawa*

12:25

12:40

  

Iris Haukamp

12:45

13:00

Discussion

  

13:00

14:00

Lunch

  

14:00

14:15

  

Satoru Nakamura 

14:20

14:35

  

James Morris

14:40

14:55

Discussion

  

15:00

15:15

  

Marie Yasunaga*

15:20

15:35

  

David Slater

15:40

15:55

Discussion

  

16:00

16:15

Coffee

  

16:20

16:35

  

Anatole Bernet*

16:40

17:00

  

Leo Born*

17:00

17:30

Discussion

Bettina Gramlich-Oka

Space

0. Bettina Gramlich-Oka (Sophia University): Introduction, Discussions, Closing

 

  1. Yoshitaka Yamamoto (NIJL): Visualizing the Jūjun kagetsu Album (1827) (YouTube)

Late Edo calligraphy and painting albums (shogajō), both manuscript and printed, often contain works by literati belonging to the same or adjacent networks. They offer valuable information about the interactions and connections of early modern Japanese literati. This presentation focuses on the manuscript album Jūjun kagetsu (One Hundred Days of Blossoms and the Moon), compiled by Rai Kyōhei in 1827 and now held at the Yale University Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. In this album, Kyōhei collected poems and paintings from family members, friends, and acquaintances with whom he spent time during his travels in the Kyoto-Osaka region. I will use the JBDB to visualize Kyōhei’s interpersonal relationships as recorded in the album and compare them to other datasets available in the database, with the goal of situating Kyōhei’s network within the larger socio-cultural landscape of early nineteenth-century Japan.

 

  1. Jingyi Li (Occidental College): Networks of Profit in Nineteenth-Century Literati Network (YouTube)

In this presentation, I introduce the profit network among popular culture producers that operated in part through calligraphy and painting gatherings (shogakai). Using examples of nineteenth-century commercial writers, I show that shogakai provided topicality and material for commercial writers who sold gossip and rumor in their “fiction.” This presentation also suggests that the analysis of nineteenth-century literati networks must take into account the active roles of various merchants in the shogakai economy.

 

  1. Takahashi Yasuhiro (Tama University): An Analysis of the Practice of Reading Confucian Texts in the Diary of Rai Shunsui (YouTube)

In this presentation, I will examine the everyday professional life of the domain scholar Rai Shunsui using the Japan Biographical Database (JBDB). In particular, I will examine the frequency with which Rai Shunsui’s diary mentions Confucian texts such as the “Four Books” (Greater Learning, Doctrine of the Mean, Analects, and Mencius) and other important Neo-Confucian texts such as the “Kinshiroku” (Reflections on Things at Hand) and the “Shōgaku” (Elementary Learning). In doing so, I will be able to determine Shunsui’s actual teaching practices and compare and contrast how faithful they were to the educational curriculum Shunsui himself advocated. I hope to shed light on some aspects of the reading experience of Tokugawa Confucians.

 

  1. Maki Nakai (Meiji University): The Origins and Development of Antiquarianism (YouTube)

Antiquarianism flourished in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries among intellectuals of diverse social statuses. Our research group has been exploring this boom, focusing on the intersection of various scholarly investigations into topics such as exotic objects, animals and plants, classical customs and manners, or contemporary cultural objects and phenomena. This presentation outlines the highlights of our ongoing project and its future prospects for digitizing data and their application, including the use of the JBDB to investigate how antiquarians developed and utilized human networks.

 

  1. Nadia Kanagawa (UCLA): Challenges and Opportunities in Exploring theNetworks of Izumi Province in the Diary of Kujō Masamoto, 150­1–1502 (YouTube)

This presentation will introduce the Japan Past & Present Tabihikitsuke reading group, and discuss both the possibilities and challenges we have faced in working to incorporate data from this early sixteenth-century courtier’s diary into the Japan Biographical Database. Our aim in working with JBDB is not only to gain further insight into the connections and relationships that allowed Kujō Masamoto to manage and maintain control of his Izumi Province estate, but also to act as a pilot project for future premodern groups who wish to take advantage of the tools that JBDB offers. A key challenge has been considering how to categorize both people and their relationships—for example, can we really say there was a “warrior” status at this time? While there clearly are some people who were primarily warriors, there were also many who participated only occasionally in military actions or who were employed in warrior bureaucracies or households but were not themselves warriors.

 

  1. Iris Haukamp (TUFS): Early Films and Creative Chaos: Establishing Links and Lineages in Japanese Cinema

My project rethinks the focus on individual directors in Japanese cinema, revealing a complex creative network through archival study. The “Narutaki-gumi” collaboration in the 1930s exemplifies this intricacy, involving various filmmakers, actors, composers, writers, and backers. This multifaceted approach questions the origin of meaning in cinema and the validity of attributing it to a single source. The Japan Biographical Database serves as a tool to reshape our understanding of these creative connections. However, this method introduces new complexities. In my presentation, I will introduce my research and its methodological challenges, and I look forward to learning about other projects and exchanging ideas and exploring best practices for utilizing digital humanities in (film history) research.

 

  1. Nakamura Satoru (Historiographical Institute The University of Tokyo): Development of a Retrieval System Using NDLOCR for Print Images of the Historiographical Institute The University of Tokyo 

The Historiographical Institute at The University of Tokyo has been releasing images of its compiled and published works. However, a significant challenge is the inability to search for text strings within these images. To address this issue, we developed a search system for these images using NDLOCR, an OCR processing program released by the National Diet Library in April 2022. In this presentation, we describe the development of this system and explore various applications of the text data generated through OCR processing.

 

  1. James Morris (Waseda University): Pre-Modern Christianity in Japan: The Limitations and Potentialities of Digital Methods

This presentation will explore the potential limitations and potentialities of exploring texts related to Christianity in pre-modern Japan using digital methods. The presentation will posit that the primary challenges that scholars face relate to the hybridity of pre-modern texts on Christianity which mix languages, scripts, literary styles, and were produced by different printing methods, as well as the paucity of digital resources suitable for dealing with these texts. It will introduce and explore some of the solutions to these problem that are being developed as part of the “Kirishitan-ban in the Digital Age: A Study of the Opportunities and Limitations of Applying Digital Methods to Kirishitan-ban” and other projects.

 

  1. Marie Yasunaga (College of Japanese Language and Culture, Tsukuba University/Independent Scholar, the Netherlands): Gender in Early Modern Streets of Edo, Illuminated through Visual Annotation using IIIF

How did women navigate the streets of global cities in early modern times? This was the overarching theme of the research project Freedom of the Streets: Gender and Urban Spaces in Asia and Europe, 1600–1850, led by Dr. Danielle van den Heuvel and carried out 2018–2022. This talk will present the innovative methodology I developed for visual analysis for historical study using the digital humanities approach of IIIF functionality and demonstrate an observation of early modern women’s presence in the urban space of Edo in the late Tokugawa period. 

 

  1. David Slater (Sophia University): Refugee Voices Japan

This is a project that explains the scholarly and pedagogical work involved in creating the largest archive of refugee voices in Japan. In a time when the global refugee crisis is only growing, Japan has virtually closed its doors to those seeking asylum, with lower than 1% refugee recognition rate since it signed the Refugee Convention. Tens of thousand seek recognition in Japan each year and are unable to return to their country for fear of persecution. They are stuck in Japan, and yet we know very little about how they live, their legal struggles, health and labor issues—the primary foci of the Refugee Voices Archive. 

 

  1. Anatole Bernet (Sciences Po Center for History, Paris): Academic Kinship and Endogamy among Imperial Japan’s Health Specialists

The project focuses on the academic elite that emerged at the end of the Tokugawa period, as part of the birth of a “hygienic modernity” (Rogaski, 2004) in Japan. It examines the origins of the first medical graduates (igaku hakushi) and their interactions within a recomposing Japanese society in the early Meiji period. In addition to interpersonal relationships, the project also examines the relationships that individuals maintained with a variety of newly created institutions.

 

  1. Leo Born (Qwyga): On the Road: Biographical Itineraries in the JBDB

This presentation showcases one of the latest feature additions to the visualization capabilities of the JBDB—biographical itineraries. Driven by the need to map out personal chronologies, this feature projects the standard timeline view of an individual’s biographical history onto a temporally indexed map. This not only allows for the chronicling of an individual’s life-long journey based on various categories (e.g. occupation, travel, or medical history), but also allows for the comparative visualization of multiple people’s biographical itineraries. Time permitting, a new visualization tool for kinship and non-kinship relations will also be introduced.