Steve Forrest

Women in Translation Month Celebrates Literary Art of Translation As AI Looms Large - PEN America To celebrate Women in Translation Month 2025, the PEN America Translation Committee curated a reading list of 18 works by women writers and translators.

August is #WomenInTranslationMonth — and a great opportunity to reaffirm the importance of human talent in creating literary translation.

Learn more — and browse a new reading list curated by PEN America’s Translation Committee — at:
pen.org/women-in-tra...

JJS Summer 2025 cover image

Explore JJS's Summer 2025 issue: online.ucpress.edu/jjs?searchre.... Discover new book reviews and articles by Reut Harari, Edwin Michielsen, Andre Haag, Melek Ortabasi, Brian Hurley, and Satoru Hashimoto’s timely Perspectives article “Repairing a Form of Life: Ritual in Ibuse Masuji’s Black Rain.”

Potrait of Emeritus Professor Toshio Watanabe on a grey background. The text below the photo says his name in English and Japanese and 1945 - 2025.

English text on a grey background that reads: It is with deep regret that we pass on the news that Toshio Watanabe, our Professor Emeritus of Japanese Arts and Cultural Heritage passed away unexpectedly but peacefully on 27 July while on holiday with his family in Hokkaido. We will be reflecting further on Toshio’s exceptional contribution to the field of Japanese art studies in due course. In the meantime, suffice it to say that we have lost a wonderful colleague, friend and mentor. We offer our heartfelt condolences to his family at this sad time. Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures

Text in Japanese on a grey background that reads:セインズベリー日本藝術研究所名誉教授である渡辺俊夫の訃報を、深い悲しみとともにお知らせいたします。渡辺教授は、7月27日、北海道でご家族と休暇中に、予期せぬ形で、しかし安らかにご逝去されました。渡辺教授の日本美術研究分野における並外れた業績については、改めて振り返る機会を設けたいと考えております。ひとまず、この場では、私たちが素晴らしい同僚であり、友人であり、指導者を失ったことをお伝えすると同時に、ご遺族の皆様に心よりお悔やみ申し上げます。 セインズベリー日本藝術研究所

It is with great sadness that we share the passing of the Sainsbury Institute's Emeritus Prof Toshio Watanabe on 27 July. A cherished scholar, mentor and friend. www.sainsbury-instit...

【次回展】慶應義塾ミュージアム・コモンズ×飯沼観音圓福寺嵯峨本の誘惑：豪華活字本にみた夢 | 慶應義塾ミュージアム・コモンズ

【 #展覧会 情報📢】
慶應義塾ミュージアム・コモンズ×飯沼観音圓福寺
嵯峨本の誘惑：豪華活字本にみた夢
会場：慶應義塾ミュージアム・コモンズ（三田キャンパス東別館）
会期：2025年 9月30日（火）－11月28日（金）
kemco.keio.ac.jp/all-post/202...

YouTube video by Road Less Marveled May 1, 1969: Fred Rogers testifies before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications

With news that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is shutting down due to Trump’s meddling, it’s worth watching Mr. Rogers testifying to the Senate about the real value of what we’ve all lost.

31 Short Stories for Women in Translation Month I had so much fun reading along with RJL supporters for January in Japan, that I hope you’ll join me again for #WomeninTranslation Month. #WITMonth an annual event each August that has played its o…

Welcome to #WomeninTranslationMonth!

For the 31 days of August, I’ll be posting a free-to-read story a day by a Japanese woman on social media, along with a biographical snippet. Feel free to read along!

Find the "calendar" for the whole month on the RJL website. 👇

If you've written, or supervised, a dissertation on an Asian topic at a UK university then do think about making or encouraging an application for the Bayly Prize (there's £2.5 k in it for the deserving winner)
royalasiaticsociety.org/the-bayly-pr...

Spongebob’s cousin from the 1940s?

hope the cooler weather helps too — yesterday was rough!

sleeping gods, maybe: 触らぬ神に祟り無し、とか

The Japanese Journal of Religious Studies @jjrs-nirc.bsky.social ✨50th anniv issue✨ abt past, present, & future of 🇯🇵 religious studies is out!

🙏Paul Swanson, Hayashi Makoto, Kawahashi Noriko, Keller Kimbrough, Emi Foulk Bushelle, @orionklautau.bsky.social @jolyonbt.bsky.social @aikerots.bsky.social

A revision to M8.8 by the USGS. This earthquake off the coast of Russia is now the strongest observed across the globe since 2010. Only 5 stronger earthquakes have been measured by humans.

Tsunami Warning remains in effect for Hawaii with an ETA of 7:17pm HST

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said waves of 1 to 3 meters (yards) above tide level were possible along some coastal areas of Hawaii, Chile, Japan and the Solomon Islands. Waves of more than 3 meters (yards) were possible along some coastal areas of Russia and Ecuador.”

Full video of the tsunami in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Kamchatka, Russia, following the 8.7 earthquake. Wave seems incoming and a few meters at least.

【 #新刊 紹介📢】
ピーター・コーニツキー『外から見た江戸時代の書籍文化　写本・版本・在外書籍』(bensei.jp/index.php?ma...)
日本の書籍文化史を海外からの視点で読み解き、学界をリードしてきたケンブリッジ大学名誉教授ピーター・コーニツキーによる日本書籍文化史講義！

Part of the The Sino-Japanese Studies journal archive was inaccessible due to server configuration issues. We have moved to good old fashioned static html pages now so it is more future resilient. All articles open access and easy to download: chinajapan.org/archive.html #china #japan

...held at Notre Dame Seishin University in Okayama--which adds a special flavor for me. Visited the library there years ago, before online collections were a thing, tracking a particular text: I had one day only, so with pencil & paper frantically copied what I could...It's all SO much easier now!

...the MSS of this text (and there are a LOT, even just the digitised ones) include a TOC, so this copy is doubly useful. There *is* a premodern printed edition, per NIJL, but no copies are listed digitized. The MS I'm using is part of the Kurokawa collection...
kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/10017...

double-spread from (probably) 19th C. MS showing two pages of the table of contents -- each item is followed by a number, in a more or less orderly layout of four rather cramped rows on each page, but the script manages to retain a spacious elegance when you look at each individual item. Quite magical! Script is a mix of mostly non-cursive kanji and very fluid kana. Numbers run from 32 to 121, with numbering down the page, with 12 columns of text on each page.

Close up of one section, starting at top right with the number 43, followed below by item 44, Tatsugayumi 立弓 (kanji with katakana gloss), and ending with item 73, Kawosashite かをさして. Item 68, Ishibashi yoru no chigiri 石橋夜契, includes two cursive kanji, but the remainder are in block script; the kana are uniformly richly rounded and fluid.

Gorgeous, idiosyncratic #manuscript from today's work on katoku setsuwa 歌徳説話--scribal work like this makes it hard to remember I'm here for the content, not the aesthetics! TOC from late Edo (?) MS copy of _Shunrai zuinō_ 『俊頼髄脳』, w/ close-up: such effortlessly fluid kana! Not all of...
#BookHistory

One like = one thought about the history of the book (or at least my research therein)

Notes and Records: the Royal Society Journal of the History of Science: Vol 79, No 2

I'm delighted to share the news that our long-anticipated special issue on 19thC Anglo-Japanese Science is in the latest issue of Notes & Records (@royalsocietypublishing.org). Thanks to @daiwafoundation.bsky.social for funding our project!

Find it 👇
royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rsnr/202...

Long time since I’ve seen such a fine utchari — memories of Wakashimazu!

This panel re-examines the application of the settler colonial studies framework to the Japanese Empire, Manchukuo, and post-imperial Japan. Prompted by growing public debates over settler colonialism in North America, as well as recent scholarly engagement with this framework in Japan, we seek theoretically engaged papers that interrogate the applicability (or inapplicability) of this framework to the Japanese colonial empire. We are particularly interested in papers that centre Indigenous peoples or examine heterogeneous settler formations. The goal of this panel is to encourage a historically grounded, theoretically innovative reassessment of settler colonialism in Japanese history and cultural studies.

CFP: "Rethinking Settler Colonialism in the Japanese Empire" for #aas2026 (description in image below). Please send abstracts or questions to roellimr➰gmail.com.

If you're working on female travellers or travel writers anywhere in Eurasia between the 11th and 16th centuries CE, we'll want to hear from you! #medievalsky

A vertically oriented rectangular graphic features macro photos of the capital letter “A” from various printed texts, repeated over and over in rows across the page. Each “A” shows minor variations in how it was printed. The bottom of the graphic contains red and black text against white with information about Christopher Warren's lecture.

Christopher N. Warren will give a free public talk on “What is Computational Bibliography?” at 5:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday 30 July, in UVA’s Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library Auditorium or via Zoom.

Details: rarebookschool.org/programs/lectures

#BookSky #DigitalHumanities

Call for nominations for the Sumie Jones Prize recognizing leadership in Japan-centered humanities projects by the Association for Asian Studies.

The Sumie Jones Prize for Project Leadership in Japan-centered Humanities recognizes edited volumes, conferences, exhibits, performances and workshops that promote understanding of Japanese humanities in the U.S. and/or Canada. Nominate a project today!

buff.ly/zU7LJUL

Early-Career Research Fellowship at University of Cambridge Recruiting now: Early-Career Research Fellowship on jobs.ac.uk. Click for details and explore more academic job opportunities on the top job board

Fellowship Opportunity!

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge seeks one Early-Career Researcher (4 years). This year applications will be considered in the following subjects: Modern and Medieval Languages; Classics; Linguistics; Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DNY167/e...

A pot full of staghorn sumac flowers or berries (not sure which they are, actually!) that I've squeezed in my hands and then covered with water and set out in the sun to infuse the water with their flavor.

Single staghorn sumac berries or blossoms (not sure which they are) on the, along with a portion of a leaf.

Pot of strained sumac-ade: The flavor from the berries (or blossoms) infuses into the water. It's sour and acidic like lemonade. Very refreshing.

These past few days have been perfect for sun brewing sumac-ade, a sour-lemony, refreshing drink.

The individual berries (or blossoms?) of the staghorn sumac look like tiny tribbles from Star Trek.

Rising sun: why Japanese fiction is booming in the west Translated Japanese fiction is suddenly booming in the west. We spoke to publishers, editors and translators to discover why

A big feature by @susiemesure.bsky.social has come out in Prospect Magazine, and it gratifyingly spotlights the role of translators in bringing J. lit to new audiences.

There are quotes from stars like @ginnytkmr.bsky.social, @wrongsreversed.bsky.social and David Boyd, as well as little ol' me 😅

Chart that shows the Pokemon franchise is the highest grossing IP of all time

New article on the interfirm dynamics and process of creation of Pokémon media mix - what would become the largest IP in the world at least according to to this image... Highly recommend the article, open access

revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JE...