The National Institute for Japanese Literature (NIJL), the UHM Library, the Japanese literature program in the UHM Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, and the Honolulu Museum of Art (HoMA) held a collaborative research symposium at Hamilton Library on Saturday, August 27, 2022. The four partners have been involved in collaborative research projects centering on the Lane Collection in the Honolulu Museum of Art, and on pre-modern Japanese books (kotenseki) in general since 2017. After a two-year break due to the pandemic, researchers from NIJL – Japan’s premier federally-funded Japanese literature research institute were able to return to Honolulu to continue work on HoMA’s Lane Collection of traditional Japanese books. As part of a collaborative research grant from the Japanese government, they sponsored the August 27 th Symposium to bring the team back together in person for the first time since early 2020. Because of Covid concerns, participation was limited to members of the research team and graduate students and library staff who have been part of the collaborative project in recent years, but it is hoped that in 2023 we can return to public events as we have done in the past.

Photos from the event