The essay is the second of a projected series of essays collectively entitled ‘The Uesugi: a study of a Japanese warrior family’s political and military involvement in eastern Japan, 1252-1455’. It examines the Uesugi family’s military activities during the first fourteen years of the conflict that broke out between Emperor Godaigo and the Ash…[Read more]

A survey of Buddhism in Japan from roughly the time of its introduction into the mid-ninth century. The following topics are covered:
The Introduction of Buddhism to Japan – Transmission Myths – The Myth of Prince Shōtoku – The Myth of a Buddhist-Shintō Rivalry – Temples in and around the Capital – Provincial Temples – The Order of Nuns – Female…[Read more]

Three consecutive patriarchs of Esoteric Buddhism were Amoghavajra of India, Huiguo of China, and Kūkai of Japan. This paper foregrounds the usually taken-for-granted but vital historical role of language education and translation in the international spread of religion and culture. There had to be sufficiently educated bilingual or multilingual…[Read more]

Three consecutive patriarchs of Esoteric Buddhism were Amoghavajra of India, Huiguo of China, and Kūkai of Japan. This paper foregrounds the usually taken-for-granted but vital historical role of language education and translation in the international spread of religion and culture. There had to be sufficiently educated bilingual or multilingual…[Read more]

Highlights recent research on the cognitive-social media and big data analytics Presents transdisciplinary research on big data analytics Provides a comprehensive overview of the theory and praxis of big data analytics

Within this chapter I evaluate the still unfolding evolution of digital resources in the case of museum and archive practice related to Nagasaki and their suitability in assisting in the task of teaching the difficult history of the atomic bombing. Memorial museums do exist to convince, and to assist the public in recalling public and collective…[Read more]

The formalization of sound changes as finite state transducers is implicit already in the Neogrammarians. For at least six decades scholars have recognized the potential of transducers for improving the speed and rigor of research in historical linguists, but almost no historical linguists actually use them. This article identifies the obstacles…[Read more]

For a long time, metaphors have played an important role in depicting language history. In this study, we contrast early metaphors on language history, such as the family tree or the wave model, with recent metaphors that were popularized after the quantitative turn, such as forests of trees or phylogenetic networks. Speculating about metaphors…[Read more]

Slideshow for a forthcoming invited presentation. ABSTRACT: Podcasting originated as a new form of audio broadcasting, but by 2006, issues of ease of use, proprietary technology, and finances slowed its momentum. Now podcasting is more popular than ever. This presentation therefore traces the author’s initial and current CALL podcasting p…[Read more]

Two sections of a book comparing creation myths from ancient Greece and Rome with their Japanese counterparts from the early 8th Century Kojiki (古事記, “Records of Ancient Matters”). These fusion essays are summations of previous book sections by Greek and Japanese authors on the elements of fire and air, respectively, and, drawing from Plato and J…[Read more]

This paper renders the ancient folktale ‘Ama’ (Woman Diver) into English, investigates its origins, and interprets its timeless significance. From a prehistoric oral tradition, it evolved into a temple chronicle and a Noh play. The paper includes a summary in Japanese, and all the references are in Japanese. With a moving story and vivid…[Read more]

This paper renders the ancient folktale ‘Ama’ (Woman Diver) into English, investigates its origins, and interprets its timeless significance. From a prehistoric oral tradition, it evolved into a temple chronicle and a Noh play. The paper includes a summary in Japanese, and all the references are in Japanese. With a moving story and vivid…[Read more]

The traditional configuration of content on top and comments on the bottom on most websites often dismiss comments as of secondary importance to content. This article looks at how comment culture(s) in China operate outside of the top-bottom dichotomy where comments are increasingly supplanting content as the main form of consumable media. Through…[Read more]

This project explores the recent censorship of two Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots on Tencent’s popular WeChat messaging platform. Specifically, I am advancing a technographic approach in ways that give agency to bots as not just computing units but as interlocutors and informants. I seek to understand these chatbots through their i…[Read more]

This paper is part of a larger research project that attempts to apply historical social network
analysis to the study of Chinese Buddhist history. The underlying research questions are
whether social network analysis (SNA) metrics can be gainfully applied to Buddhist history,
and whether network visualizations can enable us to better…[Read more]

Syllabus for Japanese Mythology Spring 2021

The field of Chinese Historical Phonology is traditionally dealing with a large number of complex and diverse types of data. While the data diversity can be conveniently dealt with in qualitative approaches, computational possibilities that have arisen during the past two decades offer new possibilities and new challenges for the field. In the…[Read more]