PMJS is an interdisciplinary forum for more than 1000 members worldwide who do research into earlier periods of Japanese art, culture, history, religion and literature. The mailing list was founded in 1999 by Michael Watson (Meiji Gakuin University) and run from Yokohama for eight years. In 2008, Matthew Stavros (University of Sydney) generously offered to transfer the mailing list to Google groups. Matthew has been administering the mailing list very efficiently in the years since then. To join or browse the new forum, see:    

 PMJS: Premodern Japanese Studies  (pmjs.org) (listserve)

All messages from January 2008 have appeared automatically on the Google groups site where they can be can be read by members and non-members alike. The index to the logs (1999-2007) gives a good idea of the range of our discussions over the first eight years. The monthly or quarterly logs used to be password protected but after redaction of email addresses, these logs were made public in December 2014. More than fifty threads (discussions) can also be read in the public archive.

Material on this site at Meiji Gakuin University includes academic resources for the study of premodern Japan, including several databases (translations of texts written in Japan before 1600, translations of noh plays). These are regularly updated.

A recent addition is a personal project: "Genpei Tales and the Nō" (2012–).

No updates will be made to the list of PMJS members who joined between 1999-2007, but the page will be kept online as an archive.

I would like to express my gratitude to those around the world who made this list a success.

Thanks to Meiji Gakuin University for allowing me to host the academic list for its first eight years. Thanks also to Apple computers and the mailing list freeware Macjordomo that made it all technically possible in the early days of the Internet.

Michael Watson (2008.02.15) (revised 2014.12.30)

main sections of site:

archive | logs | members | noh | papers | resources | texts & translations

Sections still being actively updated

The following sections are no longer being updated

List founder and editor (1999-2007)
Co-administrator from 2008 with Matthew Stravros, the current editor

Michael Watson
Professor of Japanese Studies and Comparative Literature
Faculty of International Studies, Meiji Gakuin University
1518 Kamikurata-cho, Totsuka-ku, Yokohama 244-8539, Japan
Personal web page.

Co-editor and translator of Japanese digests (2003-2006)

Midorikawa Machiko 緑川真知子
Adjunct lecturer in Japanese literature (Genji monogatari)
Personal web page.

Book links by Association with Amazon.com.

amazon.com (U.S.A.) | amazon.co.jp (Japan) | amazon.co.uk (Britain) | amazon.fr (France) | amazon.de (Germany)

The PMJS list is an Associate of Amazon.com, Amazon.co.jp, Amazon.co.uk, and a Partner/Partenaire at Amazon.de and Amazon.fr. Orders go directly to Amazon, in complete privacy and with the usual discounts. 

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http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/~pmjs/