Japanese Shipwright Videos Complement Research Journal

Graduate student Michelle Damian has posted video clips of her visit with Japanese Shipwright Mr. Kanji Mitsumori as part of her seventh project journal entry. Through the journal Michelle shares her experiences while conducting her MA research on Japanese wooden boats. This includes a variety of activities from studying woodblock prints to travel to Japan. She writes about the importance of woodblock prints, museum exhibits, and intensive study of classical Japanese language texts. You can read her latest entry and view the video clips by clicking on “Research” in the left hand menu of her journal found here: http://www.uri.edu/artsci/his/mua/project_journals/aj/aj_intro.shtml

 

We hope you enjoy this inside view of one woman’s academic travels as she seeks to learn about Japanese boat building techniques rarely studied in the west.

Can Museums Survive in a YouTube World?

Dave Shirlaw recently posted the following article on the MARHST-L list. It’s an interesting comment about the impact of the Internet on museums. Our comments follow.

Kurt

NEW YORK, Aug. 9 /PRNewswire/ — That’s not simply a rhetorical
question. With diminished government funding, dwindling audiences and a
tenuous connection to the next generation of patrons, museums are facing
a challenging 21st Century. To attract new audiences, museums have
mounted blockbuster exhibitions, enlisted starchitects to build
expensive additions/expansions and introduced hip evening events with
DJs and cocktails.

But the real problem may well be the museum experience itself. And for
many younger targets — particularly the under-30s who grew up with the
instant gratification of the Web — it remains as didactic and passive
as it has been since the 19th century.

Promoting Asian Maritime Research

I’d like to take a moment to highlight a topic that has often been overlooked in maritime archaeology: Asian seafaring. Relatively few archaeological excavations have been done in Asian waters, and even less has been published on those topics. Books or websites (especially in English) are few and far between.