ASIA 453: Primary Sources

In the context of this course, primary sources include maps and the texts written by Japanese travellers.

Texts

In the UBC Library Catalogue

• Search by subject by entering one of the terms below:
  
  • Japan--Description and travel
  • Japan--Description and travel--Early works to 1800
  • Japanese diaries
  • Travelers' writings
  • Travel in literature
    
    
  Your search will retrieve materials in English, Japanese, French, etc.
  
  Or simply enter some keywords.

• Search by author if you know the name of a Japanese travel diarist, for example
  Michitsuna no Haha

Digitized Resources

• America, Asia and the Pacific: A Social and Cultural History of Meiji Japan
  "Papers from the Edward Sylvester Morse Collection - one of the first Americans to live in Japan" Includes some 3000 pages of diaries, letters, scrapbooks, lectures and publications from the 1880s to 1923
  
  
• The Historiographical Institute, The University of Tokyo (Tōkyō Daigaku Shiryō Hensanjo)
  Publishes primary source materials dealing with Japanese history, with English language descriptions of  key publications. Includes English translation of Documents of Iriki.

E-Texts

• Japanese Text Initiative
  The University of Virgina Library site offers the full-text of a selection of pre-modern and modern Japanese literary works. (Texts are in Japanese).

Maps

• Japanese Maps of the Tokugawa Era (Rare Books and Special Collections, UBC Library)
  Digitized maps from one of the world's largest collections of maps and guidebooks of the Japanese Tokugawa period, ca. 1600-1867.  Text on the maps is in Japanese, but you can search by place name in English.

Japanese Language Materials
Shirin Eshghi
shirin.eshghi@ubc.ca

English Language Materials
Allan Cho
allan.cho@ubc.ca

Rare Books and Special Collections
Katherine Kalsbeek
katherine.kalsbeek@ubc.ca