Emily Warren

Were They Having Sex? A Historian Weighs In(to bed) Was Japan’s most famous novelist having sex with the most powerful courtier of her era?

Why do people think that Murasaki Shikibu was having sex with Michinaga?

If you have ever wondered about this, I wrote a casual two-part post answering this very question!

historybento.beehiiv.com/p/were-they-...

Nourishing Life: Cultures of Food and Health in Early Modern Japan
Joshua Schlachet｜UH Press uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/nouris...

Home | History Bento

I am doing a little newsletter! If you want to get a weekly snapshot of food and Japanese history, please subscribe!

historybento.beehiiv.com

Very excited to share we finally launched our Global Conferences Database! Ever wondered what conferences are where, if they cost money, what languages they use, or what disciplines they are? Now there's a tool for that!! It's both Japan Studies AND Asian Studies, so all folks can use it. 🙂

Today I started a new side project in #FactGrid: cataloguing circular panoramas (anamorphosis). I would be grateful for any information about further digitised material or even just catalogue entries.

database.factgrid.de/wiki/FactGri...

2026 Kambun Workshop — USC Project for Premodern Japan Studies

After a hiatus, USC Kambun Workshop is back! We'll be meeting over Zoom and reading the hot takes of Fujiwara no Teika in Meigetsuki! Come join us.

www.uscppjs.org/2026-kambun-...

2026 - AAS - Premodern Japan-related panels Premodern Japan-related Sessions, Association for Asian Studies 2026 Below is a list of sessions at AAS 2026 related to premodern Japan. I’ve done my best to locate everything, but if anything has ...

For premodern/early modern Japan specialists out there (or those who are Japan-curious), I've finally finished compiling my list of relevant panels/talks for #AAS2026! Please let me know if I accidentally missed something! docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Fun discovery @theulspeccoll.bsky.social today: wonderful 1820s imagery depicting the 11th-century samurai warrior Minamoto no Yoshiie, changing into his armour. CUL FJ.973.50.

How Fanfiction Can Help Us Reimagine Scholarly Publishing Archive of Our Own, a digital fanfiction repository, shows what’s possible when we design our infrastructures around the communities that use them, rather than around extractive logics.

My latest piece, on open access and scholarly publishing - revealing my inner fangirl to the world in the process (you are not shocked, I know) 📚 #AcademicSky

The JJRS just published an excellent article by Dan Sherer on Oda Nobunaga's relationship with religious institutions. The article challenges the view, long held by historians, that Nobunaga was hostile toward religion. Using a trove of primary sources, Sherer argues that it was much more completed.

This is a wonderful piece on dyes and colors from the Heian period!

How Buddhism Spread in Japan, 650-850 Between the late seventh and early ninth centuries, Japan changed from a land largely without Buddhism to a country where Buddhist ideas, images, and practices were everywhere. The introduction of …

My new book is coming out in August 2026.
uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/how-bu...

Thai cat treatises — called “Tamra Maew” — pair illustrations of auspicious felines with poetic notes: one has “eyes like dewdrops on a lotus,” another’s are “lit like fireflies, applied liquid gold”. Pages of a fine 19th-century example here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/tamra-maew/

On Aug 23, 1945, weather forecasts, which had been banned during the war, reappeared in Japan's newspapers.

That same day, the Asahi Shimbun published an editorial titled A Reflection on Our Own Guilt

A short 🧵 on journalism and fascism (for our friends at the NYT) in the wake of Japan's defeat

Brotherton: Taniha in the 5th and 6th Centuries — USC Project for Premodern Japan Studies WPH 202 / Zoom Paul Brotherton completed his master’s degree at Kobe University. His presentation will consider early state formation and regional history with a focus on the Taniha region and the...

USC is hosting a hybrid talk on Taniha and the vibrant world of ancient maritime trade along the Japan Sea Coast on 9/4! If you're in LA, come join us. If not, register for the Zoom below:

www.uscppjs.org/visitors/202...

Wingman tries to give flowers and poem to lady-in-waiting to arrange hook-up and she is unimpressed.

"Did you just pick these flowers off our fence? Can't you, you know, show a little more effort?"

New issue of the Journal of Japanese Studies is out! Highlights include articles on kanpu masatsu, war photography, empire paranoia, Italian-Japanese children's lit, Seidensticker’s style, and a bonus piece on Black Rain and ritual. Don’t miss it!

Look, Murasaki, at this very handsome man in the mirror. Tis I!

This manuscript copy of the Chūjiruiki dates from the Kamakura period. I do not think the copier was a great artist; I like to imagine they were trying their best.

a monochrome manuscript page with Japanese text, a few faded illustrations of a bamboo bowl, a pestle.

For your Heian trivia night, the main categories are: The Four Condiments, deep-dish items, dried items, fresh items, "tree sweets" (any guesses?), Tang sweets, mochi, soups, grilled items, soups, sake, and rice. The Four Condiments were salt, sake, hishio (similar to miso), and vinegar.

a monochrome manuscript page with illustrations of bowls, lids, saucers, chopsticks, and an odd dish with crane statues.

When I lecture on early Japanese cuisine, I start from the Chūjiruiki (Notes from the Palace Kitchen). The unknown author lists the main categories of Heian cuisine and examples of foods therein. We can also see illustrations of twelfth-century tableware. #manuscriptmonday

Glossary with three columns: "Latine-Curilice-Chuhachtscha-Kamtschtice-Ukinice." Lists of words in each column. Source: SPbF-ARAN (r.1, op.13, ed.10, l. 209-214ob, 222-223ob (image from the linked article)

Just got back from Hokkaidō, which inspired me to look up Ainu manuscripts for #ManuscriptMonday. Here's Stepan Krasheninnikov's 1738 "A Glossary: Latine-Ainu-Chukchi-Koryak-Itelmen," an early record of the Ainu language.
For more on early manuscripts, see: eprints.lib.hokudai.ac.jp/dspace/bitst...

This post inspired me. I wish we had more medieval art threads here! So I’ll be a part of the solution with one on this amazing silver incense globe from the Shōsōin. shosoin.kunaicho.go.jp/en-US/treasu...

Two candlesticks, made from an alloy of gold and silver known as electrum. This tweet thread will walk through a description of them, but I'll do a summary description here: each candlestick features four beast's feet at the base, with four small men set upon each of the these feet looking up. The shaft of the candlestick is straight, but covered in twisting vine figures, and little human forms clamber up the shafts. Then, near the top are bird claws that clasp the cup into which wax will fall, and at the center of the cap for the candle is a pig into which the candle is meant to be set. More info at the Met website here: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/478629

1. One of my favorite objects to discuss in class: candlesticks commissioned by Bishop Bernward of Hildesheim before 1022. Conceptually, they're brilliant so I thought I'd walk through some of what I find so ingenious about them. 🧵

Japan Past & Present (JPP) is pleased to invite paper proposals for a symposium on the theme “Humanistic Approaches to the Study of Premodern Japanese Law,” to be hosted bilingually in Japanese and English at UCLA on Sept 26-27, 2025. ⚖️ japanpastandpresent.org/en/news/call...