Announcement - The Samurai Archives Journal of Japanese History

A month or two ago I announced the planned creating of a history
journal. It is moving along, and the webpage will be finished within
the next few weeks. So, I'm announcing here first that I am now
accepting submissions. The format for articles will generally follow
the Monumenta Nipponica stylesheet:

http://monumenta.cc.sophia.ac.jp/submissions.html

Although with some minor changes that will be covered in the webpage.
Also, as I mentioned before, although we encourage students and
academic scholars of Japanese history to submit articles for the
journal, academic affiliation is by no means a requirement. Here is
the preliminary (in other words, rough draft) statement on the home
page of the journal website. Feel free to post or email me with any
questions. We'll also be looking for anyone willing to make donations
to help fund the journal, but regardless, I'm moving forward with it.
Thanks to the people who are helping me along with all this.



The Samurai Archives Journal of Japanese History is a new journal
devoted to the critical examination of the events and personalities of
pre-20th century Japan.

The goals of the Journal are to:

# Encourage new and established scholars to share their research, as
well as to give independent scholars a forum for their work
# To introduce readers to the wealth of material available in Japanese
and English
# To encourage interest and informed discussion on the topic of
Japanese history

The journal is tentatively scheduled for publication in early 2008,
and is currently accepting submissions.

Although the general focus of the journal is on military history and
biography, articles dealing with all periods and subjects of Japanese
history are welcomed; we demand only solid scholarship, clear writing
and original ideas. Writers may approach their subjects from whichever
field or discipline they wish.

For several years the Samurai Archives has been the most comprehensive
and widely recognized source of Japanese history in English on the
internet. This print journal will draw on the resources of the website
and the talents of its members as well as the scholarship of other
contributors to present an authoritative and entertaining quarterly on
this fascinating subject.

Hi.

This sounds like an interesting project, however I have a few questions:

1) Will it be a print publication?

2) Will it be peer-reviewed?

3) Why have a new journal in addition to Monumenta Nipponica?

--- In samuraihistory@yahoogroups.com, Barbara Nostrand
wrote:

>
> Hi.
>
> This sounds like an interesting project, however I have a few questions:
>
> 1) Will it be a print publication?
>
> 2) Will it be peer-reviewed?
>
> 3) Why have a new journal in addition to Monumenta Nipponica?
>

1) Yes.

2) Depends on the definition of "peer review" (The technically correct
answer is probably "no") - I will have a staff of readers, fact
checkers, and editors, and critical examinations and rebuttals are
welcome - some of them will have degrees in Japanese history. I have
no university affiliation, so I have no "colleagues" to call on. Also,
I am putting special and hard emphasis on quality sources and
references. The sources an article are based on will be evaluated as
well as the article itself.

3) Covered this in an old post, but only established PhDs can get
published in Monumenta Nipponica - I can't, and I don't know anyone
personally who can. It will be a forum for independent scholars as
well as academic scholars. Also, to put it simply (the old post goes
into greater detail) - this would be purely a "history" journal,
pre-20th century narrative history, biography, military, events. Most
Japan related journals don't cover "just" history. The goal is to
develop something interesting, readable, and useful for research. The
quality of writing, and veracity of ideas is more important than a PhD
or lack thereof. But I am also not disallowing any subjects related
to Japanese history - anything regarding pre-20th century Japan will
be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

I call it a "journal", but the reality is that they will essentially
be books, more similar to a multi-volume set than a journal as far as
execution goes.

Not to mention, a print publication is the next logical step for the
Samurai Archives, which is one of the main reasons I am moving forward
with this.

--- Barbara Nostrand <nostrand@...> wrote:

> 1) Will it be a print publication?

Yes.

> 2) Will it be peer-reviewed?

Working on that.

> 3) Why have a new journal in addition to Monumenta
> Nipponica?

Because not all of us are PhD's who can get published
in MN. That doesn't mean there isn't good work to be
had out there.

This certainly won't compete with MN.




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I am thinking about maybe making a submission. Would I do it via email
or postal mail? I was also wondering if university course work papers,
that have of course not been published, would be acceptable for
submission.

--- Scott <scottc_4@...> wrote:

> I am thinking about maybe making a submission. Would
> I do it via email
> or postal mail? I was also wondering if university
> course work papers,
> that have of course not been published, would be
> acceptable for
> submission.

Questions like this are probably best sent directly to
Kitsuno (webmaster@...), but I can
answer for him that those would likely be fine,
assuming they haven't been previously published. Your
submission would be by email, so we could format it
for the journal.




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--- In samuraihistory@yahoogroups.com, "Scott" wrote:

>
> I am thinking about maybe making a submission. Would I do it via email
> or postal mail? I was also wondering if university course work papers,
> that have of course not been published, would be acceptable for
> submission.
>

It's on the webpage under "submissions" - either one.

--- In samuraihistory@yahoogroups.com, "Scott" wrote:

>I was also wondering if university course work papers,
> that have of course not been published, would be acceptable for
> submission.
>

As long as it hasn't been published before, that's fine. The website
covers most of the important details, although I will have to update
it to say that anything not previously published is fine.