The Nathan and Jeanette Miller Center for Historical Studies and the University of Maryland Libraries invite applications for one $900.00 grant to support research in the library’s Gordon W. Prange Collection and East Asia Collection on topics related to the period of the Allied Occupation of Japan and its aftermath, 1945-1960. Holders of the Ph.D. or an equivalent degree are eligible to apply, as are graduate students who have completed all requirements for the doctorate except the dissertation. The competition is open to scholars in all parts of the world and from any discipline, but historical topics are preferred. University of Maryland faculty, staff, and students may not apply.
The application deadline is October 29, 2010. The grant must be used by May 31, 2011. Grant funds will be disbursed in the form of reimbursement for travel, lodging, meals, reproductions, and related research expenses. Such costs as computers or software are not eligible. Reimbursement will require submission of receipts for processing by the University.
All applications must be submitted electronically by attachment to Courtenay Lanier at clanier@umd.edu with "Twentieth-century Japan Research Awards" in the subject line. Applications must include a curriculum vitae and a two-to three-page description of the research project. Applications from graduate students must be accompanied by a letter from the principal faculty advisor attesting to the significance of the dissertation project and to the student’s completion of all other degree requirements.
Materials in the Gordon W. Prange Collection include virtually all Japanese-language newspapers, news agency releases, magazines, pamphlets, and books dating from the period of Allied censorship, 1945-1949, in addition to over 10,000 newspaper photos. There are also materials published by Chinese and Korean residents, most of which are written in Japanese. Related collections in English include the personal papers of Charles Kades and Justin Williams. Office correspondence documenting policies and decisions of the Publications, Pictorial, and Broadcast Division, Civil Censorship Detachment (Civil Intelligence Section), Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers Japan, are complementary to official Occupation records housed at the National Archives, College Park. Japanese newspapers and magazines from the Prange Collection are available for research on microform in the East Asia Collection. Other Prange materials are made available for research in the Prange Collection reading area after consultation with the Prange Curator or Manager. The East Asia Collection contains Japanese-language books published during the wartime period, scholarly monographs on Occupied Japan, and a wide variety of reference works.
A one-page summary of research findings is required at the conclusion of the grant period.
Beginning on February 1, 2010, access to books on political science in the Prange Collection with call numbers JA-0001 through JX-0085 will be temporarily suspended while the books are being digitized. This digitization is as part of a joint project of the University of Maryland and the National Diet Library of Japan (NDL) to preserve and provide access to the Prange Book Collection. For more information, please contact
prangebunko@umd.edu. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Report of the Prange Collection Fukuoka symposium held on August 6, 2007, is now available for free of charge.
The symposium was entitled "被占領下の国語教育と文学" and the report contains:
- 基調講演 占領軍による図書没収の周辺：石田忠彦
- 報告 プランゲ文庫の資料整理と研究用ツールの現状：坂口英子・野田朱実
- 研究発表 1 敗戦と「敗戦期文学」：横手一彦
- 研究発表 2 『ビルマの竪琴』について—プランゲ文庫所蔵検閲初出誌を素材と して：松本常彦
- 研究発表 3 プランゲ文庫資料から見える戦後初期国語教育—国語教科書・副読本の実態とその特色：吉田裕久
- 質疑応答
The booklet is 72 pages and the language is Japanese.
If you are interested in obtaining a copy, please send an e-mail to
prangebunko@umd.edu with your name, institution, and address.
DVD introducing the Prange Collection (9.41 minutes; both English and Japanese; produced in 2008) is also available for free of charge upon request.
Ann Sherif, Director of the East Asian Studies Program and Professor of Japanese Language and Literature at Oberlin College, will give a talk entitled
Why Censor Lady Chatterley?: Sex and Democracy in Japan after 1945.
- WHEN: Friday, October 16, 2009
12:00-1:30pm - WHERE: 2103 Taliaferro Hall
University of Maryland, College Park
This event is open to the public and co-sponsored by the East Asia & Gordon W. Prange Collections, the Nathan and Jeanette Miller Center for Historical Studies and the Center for East Asian Studies (CEAS) in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the founding of CEAS (formerly the Committee on East Asian Studies), and the Department of Women’s Studies.
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Prange Collection exhibit entitled,
Voices of the Vanquished:
Censored Print Publications from Postwar Japan, 1945-1949. is on display through January 19, 2010 at the Maryland Room Gallery, Hornbake Library, University of Maryland.
See
Gallery Hours
April 29, 2009
Celebration of the 30th Anniversary of the Dedicaton of the Prange Collection with keynote speaker,
Professor John Dower,
Ford International Professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
His book on the Occupation of Japan, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II,
won the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction. Room 2203, Art & Sociology Building, 4:00pm - 5:30pm
April 30, 2009
A workshop entitled, Using Japanese Visual Images to Support Teaching, Research and Publications in Japan Studies. Speakers will include University
of Maryland faculty and staff, a representative from
the National Diet Library of Japan, and members of
the North American Coordinating Council on Japanese Library Resources (NCC)
who have been working on this issue. Co-sponsored by NCC.
Special Events Room, McKeldin Library, 9:00am-12:30pm
The UM Libraries have produced a new informational DVD about the Prange Collection. The DVD describes the collection, its historical significance, and the current efforts to preserve and provide access to it (running time: 9:41 minutes). To receive a copy of the DVD, contact prangebunko@umd.edu.
The Nathan and Jeanette Miller Center for Historical Studies and McKeldin Library, University of Maryland, annually offer two grants to support research in the library's Prange Collection and East Asia Collection on topics related to the period of the Allied Occupation of Japan and its aftermath, 1945-1960. Holders of the Ph.D. or an equivalent degree are eligible to apply, as are graduate students who have completed all requirements for the doctorate except the dissertation. The competition is open to scholars in all parts of the world and from any discipline, but historical topics are preferred. University of Maryland faculty, staff, and students may not apply. The deadline for applications is November 28, 2008. More information can be found at The Nathan and Jeanette Miller Center for Historical Studies.
Julia Adeney Thomas, "Photography and Democracy: Between History and Sex in Occupied Japan"
Vera Mackie, "A Cultural History of the Body in Modern Japan"
Lee Pennington, "Wartorn Japan: Disabled Veterans and Society, 1931-1952"
Takashi Nishiyama, "Former Military Scientists and Engineers, 1919-1964," and "Labor Activism in the Japan National Railways, 1945-1955"
Alicia Volk, "Democratizing Japanese Art, 1945-1960"
Kyoko Omori, "The Culture of Japanese Vernacular Modernism, 1920-1950"
Maki Umemura, "The Pharmaceutical Industry in Japan since 1945"
The University of Maryland Libraries announces the launch of The Prange Digital Children's Book Collection.
The online collection provides access to children's books published in Japan during the early post-World War II years, 1945-49.
The University of Maryland Libraries and the National Diet Library of Japan (NDL) are working collaboratively to preserve and provide access to the Prange Children's Book Collection in digital format and on color microfilm. Eventually, all 8,000 titles from the Gordon W. Prange Children's Book Collection will be available. Digitization of those volumes is ongoing and new titles will be mounted on a rolling basis.
Due to copyright restrictions, access to the full contents of the books are limited to the University of Maryland College Park campus. However, access to book records and thumbnails of book covers are available to all.
We welcome feedback and comments at http://www.lib.umd.edu/digital/contact.jsp
On January 2, 2008, the Gordon W. Prange Collection opened in its new location.
The Prange Collection's new address is:
Gordon W. Prange Collection
4200 Hornbake Library
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742-7011
Phone numbers and email addresses of Prange staff will remain the same.
This new guide includes bibliographic information for approximately 10,000 education-related titles, including general books on education, textbooks, workbooks, supplementary readers for learning foreign languages, and textbooks in Korean.
For information about ordering this free guide, click here.
Professor Taketoshi Yamamoto, Waseda University, "The Occupation-Period Magazine Database and the Proposed Newspaper Indexing Project."
Professor Kikuo Miyokawa, Hitotsubashi University, "Science & Technology in Early Post-War Japan."
Dr. Takeshi Tanikawa, Waseda University, "Osamu Tezuka in Occupied Japan."
Professor Kazuhiko Yokote, Nagasaki Institute of Applied Science, "A Nisei CCD Examiner and the Literature of the Time."
Dr. Tomoko Steen, Library of Congress, "Unit 731 Documents Housed in the Library of Congress."
Access to the Gordon W. Prange Children's Book Collection will be temporarily suspended during the joint project of the University of Maryland and the National Diet Library of Japan (NDL) to digitize and create color microfilm of the Collection. The comic books, picture books, and story books that comprise the Collection are rapidly deteriorating. Digital capture and color microfilm (used as the point of access at NDL) will provide true-to-original surrogates for scholars and researchers. Periodic project progress reports will be posted on the Prange Collection website. For more information, contact prangebunko@umd.edu
On May 2, 2005, Mr. Takao Kurosawa, the Librarian of the National Diet Library of Japan (NDL), and the University of Maryland President C.D. Mote, Jr. signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that formalized their institutions shared commitment to preserve and provide access to the 71,000 books in the Gordon W. Prange Collection. Initial efforts, to begin in Fall 2005, will focus on the digitization and microfilming of 8,000 children's books, a graphically rich and particularly rare sub-collection. Many of the Prange Collection books are unique and do not exist elsewhere, even in Japan. As such, they fill a gap in NDL holdings and in the documentation of a pivotal period in Japanese history.
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