Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures
August is the month of remembrance in Japan. The o-bon お盆 holiday is traditionally a time to return to one’s furusato 故郷, home place, and attend to the family graves. All this usually leads to an immense burden on transport infrastructure, with trains, planes and roads all full to overflowing. This year, of course, due […]
A professional diplomat with a realistic approach to the world that lay around him, Hugh Cortazzi brought a new light to bear on academic studies of Japan. In retirement he devoted his efforts to illustrating the place that Japan’s culture and history have taken in international terms since the nineteenth century. With long experience in […]
It is now two years since Sir Hugh Cortazzi died, on 14 August 2018, and in Japanese tradition we mark his sankaiki on his second death anniversary. His death came as a great shock to me, for I had seen him a couple of weeks previously and he had been as energetic and mentally sharp […]
It is true to say, without any fear of contradiction, that everybody who works on the history of Anglo-Japanese relations owes a debt of gratitude to the late Sir Hugh Cortazzi. As an author in his own right, as an editor of many books, and as an enthusiast who encouraged and stimulated those working in […]
The following words were written by Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere in 2006 to celebrate Sir Hugh Cortazzi’s award of Honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of East Anglia. We are delighted to publish this here on the 2nd anniversary of his passing. Below this oration, we also share Sir Hugh’s own words that he shared […]
Sir Hugh and Lady Cortazzi have been guiding lights and dear friends to the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures (SISJAC) throughout its two-decade long history. SISJAC would not be the vibrant Institute that it is now without their careful stewardship, advice, connections, donations and loans of historical and contemporary books, […]
The previous issue of the E-Bulletin mentioned that the Sainsbury Institute was given three-dimensional objects as a long-term loan from Sir Hugh and Lady Cortazzi. Among these 70 objects, around three quarters (fifty-three) are ceramics. And among the ceramics, about a third (eighteen) were made by the prominent Mashiko1 potter, Shimaoka Tatsuzō (1919-2007). Along with […]
The comprehensive bibliographical list shown below was compiled by Sir Hugh Cortazzi himself in February 2017. This list covers all his writings from 1999 to that date. The book entitled, Collectedwritings of Sir Hugh Cortazzi (Collected Writings of Modern Western Scholars on Japan. vol. 2), Richmond, Surrey : Japan Library, 2000includes all of his publications […]