By KAE MORISHITA/ Staff Writer
January 4, 2023 at 13:30 JST
Donald Keene in 2018 (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Students have taken the lead in a project to sort out more than 7,000 books in the collections of American-born Japanese literature expert Donald Keene (1922-2019).
Toyo University, Tokyo’s Kita Ward and the Donald Keene Memorial Foundation in July signed an agreement to scrutinize the collections of the scholar who introduced Japanese literature and culture to people around the world.
Students at Toyo University, where Keene served as a research adviser, are now examining the books kept at his home in Tokyo’s Kita Ward and elsewhere, compiling data and creating a list of the publications.
“We are thinking of making the completed book list accessible to a wide variety of people via the internet,” said Hitoshi Ishida, a literature professor at the Department of International Culture and Communication Studies of the university’s Faculty of Letters. “We believe such a database will draw attention overseas, too.”
After around 100 students applied for the 20 part-time positions for the project, the school raised the quota to 29.
The students, including two from China and South Korea, do shift work at a facility prepared by Kita Ward around three times a week.
They enter the publications’ data in a specialized format on computers, including location of discovery, content and any notes handwritten on their pages.
Keene is said to have become interested in Japanese literature research through his encounter with Arthur Waley’s translation of “The Tale of Genji.”
Student Akane Michiyuki, 22, said that checking a Japanese edition of the classic from Keene’s collections was “impressive because I found the pencil-jotted hiragana for ‘aware’ (touching) in it.”
Ayaka Yoshioka, 19, said she took interest in the project when she read about Keene’s talks with noted writer Ryotaro Shiba (1923-1996) in “Nihonjin to Nihonbunka” (Japanese people and Japanese culture) from the Chuko Bunko series.
Keene is also well known for his interactions with writers Yukio Mishima (1925-1970), Yasunari Kawabata (1899-1972) and Kobo Abe (1924-1993).
His collections cover not only literature and history but also various other fields.
The travel guide “Chikyu no Arukikata” (How to walk on Earth) and a magazine featuring Keene’s essay have been confirmed in the collections. An opera ticket stub was found between the pages of a book.
Ayano Suzuki, 19, called her “part-time job appealing because it teaches me so much.”
Others said the work is challenging.
“There are many old English books, and some of them lack complete colophons unlike their Japanese counterparts,” Yoshioka said. “Information on these titles is difficult to find online, which makes our task much tougher.”
Ishida, who supervises the program, described a possible future plan.
“Even such information as the books’ locations is recorded, so it will be possible at some point to reproduce his studies in VR (virtual reality) space,” Ishida said. “It would be great if a Keene virtual library could be used in education that combines VR and literature, or science and humanities.”
Yoshio Urano, a senior official at Kita Ward’s local revitalization division, said the municipality prides itself on having had Keene as a resident.
“By increasing the momentum of ward residents, we will seek far more effective approaches to raise awareness of Keene’s achievements,” Urano said.
The inspection of Keene’s collections will continue through March 2024.
Here is a collection of first-hand accounts by “hibakusha” atomic bomb survivors.
A peek through the music industry’s curtain at the producers who harnessed social media to help their idols go global.
Cooking experts, chefs and others involved in the field of food introduce their special recipes intertwined with their paths in life.
A series based on diplomatic documents declassified by Japan’s Foreign Ministry
A series about Japanese-Americans and their memories of World War II
