https://www.travisseifman.me/home daily 1.0 2024-01-19 https://www.travisseifman.me/contact daily 0.75 2023-10-12 https://www.travisseifman.me/media daily 0.75 2026-02-24 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e77696f95192331c3dd8d13/9aae1672-fbdb-42e2-a79b-cbe32304226c/251014_Dr.+Seifman_Radiant-E_vol7_story3_page-0001.jpg Media - Make it stand out Jan/Feb 2026 A brief article on my research, published in RADIANT, the Ritsumeikan University Research Report. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e77696f95192331c3dd8d13/8aad4828-cc82-48e6-885b-72f0ecbad761/img20250929_15200356.jpg Media - Make it stand out Sept 2025 Translated a short interview with Hirotani Satoru and Komatsu Yuma, editors of Kodansha’s manga magazine Weekly Morning, for the de Young Museum’s Art of Manga exhibition catalog. The interview discusses the editors’ roles in the production of the serial manga LAND by mangaka Yamashita Kazumi. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e77696f95192331c3dd8d13/41851d41-5461-4697-a444-0e8b39bbfda5/Screenshot+2025-10-27+152547.png Media - Make it stand out April 2025 A brief interview for the Art Research Center’s webpage and newsletter. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e77696f95192331c3dd8d13/33ca8def-e691-457b-962a-ee39cbcb9d3c/Screenshot_20240321-074522_Chrome.jpg Media - Make it stand out 19 March 2024 I was consulted for and quoted in a NYTimes article on the FBI’s recovery of a number of Ryukyuan royal treasures which surfaced in Mass. after being missing since 1945. Statements of mine in this article were then requoted in a piece in Smithsonian Magazine. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e77696f95192331c3dd8d13/697eb83b-69e2-47b4-8b35-4769271174d1/%E7%90%89%E7%90%83%E3%83%91%E3%83%B3%E3%83%95%E5%86%8D%E6%A0%A1-TS+20240308_page-0001.jpg Media - Make it stand out May 2024 English-language version of a pamphlet for the “View of Naha Trading Port and Castle Shuri Folding Screen” held by the Archival Museum, Faculty of Economics, University of Shiga. My thanks to Prof. Aoyagi Shuichi for his kind invitation and guidance on this project, and John D’Amico for his copyediting and kind suggestions. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e77696f95192331c3dd8d13/d5ffc325-a8e5-4fac-96a9-59235e771b00/Kyan+Chie+pamphlet_page-0001.jpg Media - Make it stand out Nov 2023 English-language text for pamphlet for artist Kyan Chie’s 喜屋武千恵 work “Motherhood - Prayer - Requiem” 母性ー祈りー鎮魂. Full PDF of the pamphlet here. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e77696f95192331c3dd8d13/c168e055-fb61-466e-bcf9-cf6b54b61c78/22890583506_0703f9d21c_o.jpg Media - Make it stand out May 2023 Article in e-Bulletin of the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts & Cultures (SISJAC), summarizing a talk by Ayelet Zohar (Tel Aviv U.) on ‘The Agony of Okinawa: Mao Ishikawa’s “The Great Photographic Scroll of the Ryūkyū”’. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e77696f95192331c3dd8d13/1624700158396-8DRJT054FK2NKHZFDIZY/Screenshot+2021-06-26+053522.jpg Media - Hatoma-Bushi Dec 2020 Transcription and translation of lyrics, and research for notes on song “Hatoma-bushi,” for music compilation Excavated Shellac: An Alternate History of the World’s Music (1907-1967) by Jonathan Ward. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e77696f95192331c3dd8d13/1587819785044-1KJKRMAA1IMX0U5FJD3M/japanontherecord.jpg Media - Podcast: Japan on the Record 12 Feb 2020 Dr. Tristan Grunow generously invited me to talk with him about the Oct 2019 destruction of Shuri castle in Okinawa and the devastating impact of the loss of hundreds of cultural artifacts, along with plans to reconstruct the castle. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e77696f95192331c3dd8d13/1587828200467-UF8JXNK8OXGQ727U5761/GettyImages-1179084716.jpg Media - “The loss of Shuri castle is a devastating blow for the people of Okinawa” 5 Nov 2019 Article published in Apollo: The International Art Magazine, discussing the history and cultural significance of Shuri castle (Sui gusuku) following the fire which destroyed the central palace structures on Oct 31, 2019. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e77696f95192331c3dd8d13/1595405086397-86MGAZWRKKHAABBJI6N1/cna-shuri.jpg Media - Channel News Asia, “News Briefs” 31 Oct 2019. Brief media appearance on Singapore-based television news program, talking about the fire at Shuri castle that day. (no video) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e77696f95192331c3dd8d13/1622301926807-FJE4RQASSZZNPDBKLB06/0001.jpg Media https://www.travisseifman.me/teaching daily 0.75 2025-01-21 https://www.travisseifman.me/teaching/project-six-gmwnr monthly 0.5 2020-05-11 https://www.travisseifman.me/teaching/project-five-yhxmp monthly 0.5 2020-08-12 https://www.travisseifman.me/teaching/project-four-c5fz5 monthly 0.5 2020-08-12 https://www.travisseifman.me/teaching/project-three-ayxs8 monthly 0.5 2020-08-12 https://www.travisseifman.me/teaching/project-two-lxppr monthly 0.5 2020-06-04 https://www.travisseifman.me/teaching/project-one-hlsp9 monthly 0.5 2020-06-04 https://www.travisseifman.me/teaching/heritage-tradition-and-museum-studies monthly 0.5 2024-04-05 https://www.travisseifman.me/teaching/indigenous-cultures-theory monthly 0.5 2020-06-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e77696f95192331c3dd8d13/1589166683640-DAQ3MP2OXV6T58YTYTDM/coconuts.jpg Teaching - Indigenous Cultures & Theory - Indigenous Cultures & Theory “Diaspora Cultures: This is Not a Coconut,” Saumolia Puapuaga (Samoan), 2012. https://www.travisseifman.me/research daily 0.75 2026-03-28 https://www.travisseifman.me/research/project-four-r36p7 monthly 0.5 2020-08-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e77696f95192331c3dd8d13/1588070450557-P9285S9UOOB4EFAVIIM0/20191220_121311+%282%29.jpg Research - Makino Tōtōmi-no-kami ki Above: A number of volumes of the Makino Tо̄tо̄mi-no-kami ki, with a section from vol. 1101 open, showing a diagram of a shogunal audience granted on Tenpо̄ 13 (1842)/11/19 to Shimazu О̄sumi-no-kami Narioki, lord of Kagoshima domain, and his heir Shimazu Bungo-no-kami Nariakira, just prior to the shogun receiving in audience Prince Urasoe Chо̄ki, envoy of the king of Lūchū. (U. of Tokyo Historiographical Institute, call no. 維新史料引継本 I ほ - 127 - 1101) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e77696f95192331c3dd8d13/1588077117326-USOP2I5E9UIGL45PDGNF/20191220_114617-001.jpg Research - Makino Tōtōmi-no-kami ki A detail of the above opening from vol. 1101, diagramming seating positions for an audience granted by Shogun Tokugawa Ieyoshi to lord of Kagoshima domain Shimazu Narioki and his son Nariakira. The shogun sat atop several layers of tatami and cushions (red square, upper right of this image) in the upper level 上段 of the Grand Audience Hall 大広間 (О̄hiroma) of Edo castle, facing south through the middle 中段 and lower levels 下段 of the hall where the two Shimazu elites (marked here by solid red circles) offered their obeisances. Top-ranking shogunate officials and others can be seen seated along the western edge of the lower level (top left of the image), in the Second Antechamber 二之間 (Ni-no-ma) of the audience hall, and on the attached veranda (bottom left of the image). Additional solid red circles indicate the two Shimazu elites at earlier or later points in the ceremony. The Lūchūan envoy Prince Urasoe is identified here by a small red square (bottom of the image). https://www.travisseifman.me/research/project-three-ln77d monthly 0.5 2020-08-12 https://www.travisseifman.me/research/project-two-4e3ta monthly 0.5 2020-08-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e77696f95192331c3dd8d13/1588245605092-B8XWQNS0QKX9OYYQV97K/40250923753_00f9b677ea_o.jpg Research - Performing Lūchū (Book Project) A model at the Edo-Tokyo Museum of the Grand Audience Hall 大広間 (О̄hiroma) at Edo castle, where Lūchūan envoys met with the Shogun in audience. The envoy, permitted no closer to the shogun than the middle of the lowest section, was forced to gaze upwards, across a distance, towards the Shogun seated in the most elevated section. Photo my own. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e77696f95192331c3dd8d13/1588246176837-WYDR9NNAIH2T5VUYM4B8/36844837676_58f5dd7933_o.jpg Research - Performing Lūchū (Book Project) A view of the Seto Inland Sea from the Buddhist temple of Fukuzen-ji in Tomonoura, a port town the embassies regularly stopped at along their journey; one Korean envoy described this view as “the number one vista in Japan” 「日東第一形勝」. Photo my own. https://www.travisseifman.me/research/project-one-czw35 monthly 0.5 2025-12-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e77696f95192331c3dd8d13/1588057150511-CUJU4JTX8T4B60UZIJCJ/20191211_114907.jpg Research - Ishin Shiryō Database Project - The Ishin Shiryō 維新史料 (“Restoration Documents”) are a large collection of Japanese historical documents pertaining to events leading up to and immediately following the 1868 Meiji Restoration (or Meiji Revolution), collected by the University of Tokyo Historiographical Institute 東京大学史料編纂所 ( Tōkyō Daigaku Shiryōhensanjo). Scholars at the Institute used these materials to compile a chronology of the period from 1846 to 1871, summarizing the key events day-by-day in volumes such as those pictured at left, some 4,200 volumes collectively entitled the Dai Nihon Ishin Shiryō Kōhon 大日本維新史料稿本. In the 1930s-40s, scholars at the Institute then produced a modern-type printed version of these Kōhon summaries, published as the ten-volume Ishin Shiryō Kōyō 維新史料綱要. Since 1994, these entries have been available and searchable online, through the Institute’s website. Click here to access the database in Japanese, or here for English. There, you can search by a variety of keywords, read the summaries in searchable, copy-and-pasteable text, and click through for images (イメージ) of the corresponding page from the handwritten Kōhon volume. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e77696f95192331c3dd8d13/cfe5760b-a84b-4163-bf58-9d0f01ad6db9/img20251208_10492968+%282%29.jpg Research - Ishin Shiryō Database Project - As a Postdoctoral Researcher (特任研究員) at the Institute from 2019 to 2023, I worked as a member of a team working to produce an English-language version of this database. We hope that this can become a valuable resource not only to English-speaking scholars of Japanese history, but to others as well. The above text was written by Travis Seifman for this website and is not a reflection of official wording or description authorized or approved by the Historiographical Institute. Left above: volumes from the Dai Nihon Ishin Shiryō Kōhon. Photo my own. Left below: newspaper article published in the Yomiuri Shimbun, 23 May 2020, describing the project.