East Asian Studies: Online Resources - Research guide created by the University of Michigan, it lists some great websites for learning more about modern and historical Japan, China, and Korea
China Unofficial Archive - This site is dedicated to making accessible key documents, movies, blogs, and publications spanning 75 years. It is billed as the first independent archive of unofficial citizen histories and it's goal is to archive information that would otherwise be censored or erased by the Chinese government.
JSTOR - This general database provides full-text access to over 1,300 journals and magazines in a variety of content areas. The searching options are limited, but students like the "clean and simple" interfaces
The Memory Project - The Memory Project digital collection currently consists of interviews done by eleven filmmakers: Wu Wenguang 吴文光, Zhang Mengqi 章梦奇, Zou Xueping 邹雪平, Li Xinmin 李新民, Jia Nannan 贾楠楠, Luo Bing 罗兵, Lin Tao 林涛, Zhang Ping 张苹, Li Yushan 李雨珊, Guo Zhihua 郭志华 and Qu Yufeng 屈玉凤 . Other interviews will be published incrementally as each filmmaker’s material is arranged and described. Made available by the East Asian Library at Duke University.
Ansel Adams's Photographs of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar [Library of Congress] - In 1943, Ansel Adams (1902-1984), America's most well-known photographer, documented the Manzanar War Relocation Center in California and the Japanese-Americans interned there during World War II. For the first time, digital scans of both Adams's original negatives and his photographic prints appear side by side allowing viewers to see Adams's darkroom technique, in particular, how he cropped his prints. Adams's Manzanar work is a departure from his signature style landscape photography. Although a majority of the more than 200 photographs are portraits, the images also include views of daily life, agricultural scenes, and sports and leisure activities
Fine prints, Japanese, pre-1915. - The Library of Congress' Prints and Photographs Division houses more than 2,500 woodblock prints and drawings by Japanese artists of the seventeenth through early twentieth centuries including Hiroshige, Kuniyoshi, Sadahide, and Yoshiiku. The LC appreciates the financial support provided by Nicihibunken (International Research Center for Japanese Studies, an Inter-University Research Institute Corporation) to scan 1,100 of the Ukiyo-e prints. Images are downloadable from the site.
Haldore Hanson's China Collection (1937-1938) - This collection includes photographs Hanson took in China between 1937 and 1938. Highlights of the collection include early photographs of Mao Zedong (毛澤東), Lin Biao (林彪), Zhou Enlai (周恩來), and Zhu De (朱德) at Yan'an (延安)—prominent members of the guerilla troops that took over China in 1949, creating today’s “People’s Republic of China”—and of Dr. Norman Bethune, the well-known Canadian surgeon who traveled to China in 1938 and created mobile medical units for Chinese forces fighting Japanese troops. The collection was made accessible by Carlton College Library.
Hedda Morrison Photographs of China - This collection of some 6,000 photos and 10,00 negatives were taken by Hedda Morrison during her time living in China from 1933 to 1946. The collection was made accessible by Harvard-Yenching Library.
Photographs of Pre-1949 China from the YMCA Archives - 717 black and white photos taken by YMCA employees in China between 1896 and 1949 were digitized and cataloged in this project. These photographs, gathered by ordinary young American college graduates, provide rare views of 17 Chinese cities, documenting activities such as sports and physical education, industrial training, public health campaigns, science lectures, and protest movements. Presented as a group, the photographs comprise an extremely valuable resource for scholars and students who are interested in history in general and Chinese history in particular. The collection was made available by University of Minnesota Library.
William Speiden Journals on [China Sea & Japan, 1854-55] - The two journals of William Speiden, Jr. (volume 1: 9 March 1852-2 July 1854, and volume 2: 3 July 1854-16 February 1855), give account of shipboard life, diplomacy, and travel as well as ports of call in a myriad of international locations during the global journey of the Mississippi. The journals are richly illustrated. They contain drawings by Speiden and other shipmates as well as art work collected by Speiden, including delicate watercolor paintings on pith created by unknown Chinese artists that depict seascapes and people of the China Seas.
David Rumsey Historical Map Collection -The David Rumsey Historical Map Collection focuses on 16th through 21st century maps of North and and South America, as well as maps of the World, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania. The collection includes atlases, globes, school geographies, maritime charts, and a variety of separate maps including pocket, wall, children's and manuscript maps. The online selection is an expanding cross section of images designed to highlight the depth and breadth of the collection. The digital images and associated descriptive data are copyright Cartography Associates. The physical map collection is housed at the David Rumsey Map Center at Stanford University.
East Asian Archaeology Corona Satellite Images Collection: 1960s-1970s - A collection of 204 declassified high resolution satellite images over China were taken by USGS back in 1960s and 1970s. Dr. Li Min purchased them with an OID grant for his Archaeological Landscape of China course and spent several months painstakingly identifying each image and provided invaluable metadata for easy to use.
East Asian Maps in the Bruman Collection - Consists of 1079 maps of China, Japan, Korea, Manchuria, and other areas in East Asia. The maps were produced between 1800 and 1960s. A majority of them produced by the Office of Strategic Service, the American Map Society, the National Geographic Magazine, and government agents or commercial publishers in China, Great Britain, and Japan. Some of the maps were once highly classified and produced in limited quantities. Access to this collection is generously supported by Sammy Yukuan Lee Foundation.
Japanese-American Internment Camp Newspapers, 1942 to 1946 (Library of Congress) - Produced by the Japanese-Americans interned at assembly centers and relocation centers around the country during World War II, these newspapers provide a unique look into the daily lives of the people who were held in these camps. They include articles written in English and Japanese, typed, handwritten and drawn. They advertise community events, provide logistical information about the camps and relocation, report on news from the community, and include editorials.
North Korean Serials - Contains a total of 283 serial titles published in North Korea are available at the Library of Congress, from as early as 1948, the year the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) was established, right down to the present. The collection serves as a vital resource for scholars and policy makers seeking a deeper understanding of the DPRK to inform their research, and its particularly strong coverage of the DPRK's early decades is both rare and noteworthy. In addition to serials, the Library of Congress also houses numerous North Korean monographs. The digital collection presented here makes freely available some of the most sought-after materials in the Library's North Korean collection—periodicals from 1948 to 1964.
China Digital Times - Provides content about China for The World Post, a partnership between The Huffington Post and the Berggruen Institute.
Cambridge Core - Contains Open Access peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters and books in art, humanities, social sciences and etc. published by Cambridge University press and other international academic publishers.
Fulcrum - In August 2020, University of Michigan Press launched the Michigan Asian Studies Open Access Books Collection, a collection of 100 significant books about Asia made freely and publicly available online. Jointly sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Humanities Open Book Program makes outstanding out-of-print humanities books available to a wide audience.
Japanese Censorship Collection [1920s-1930, Library of Congress] - Contains 1,327 marked-up copies of censored monographs and galley proofs for approximately 1,100 titles, mostly from the 1920s and 1930s. They include copies submitted by publishers for examination by censors in the Home Ministry of the Japanese imperial government as well as books lawfully confiscated by the ministry and local authorities for censor review. The practice of censorship were carried out "to protect public order 'annei' and the manners and morals 'fuzoku'" in Japan. To achieve these ends, censors suppressed "kinshi", deleted "sakujo" or revised publications "kaitei" they deemed a threat to social and political stability.
Luminos - Luminos is University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program for monographs. With the same high standards for selection, peer review, production and marketing as our traditional program. As of 2020, there are 20+ titles on Asian studies.
