Donald Howard Shively (May 11, 1921 – August 13, 2005) was an American academic, historian,

Japanologist Japanese studies ( Japanese: ) or Japan studies (sometimes Japanology in Europe), is a sub-field of area studies or East Asian studies involved in social sciences and humanities research on Japan. It incorporates fields such as the study of Japanes ...

, author and professor emeritus of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

.Fox, Margalit
"Donald H. Shively, 84, Leader in Japanese Studies in the U.S., Dies,"
''New York Times.'' August 24, 2005. He was a leader of Japan studies in the United States.

Early life

Shively was the son of American missionaries in Japan. He was born in

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin, Keihanshin metropolitan area along wi ...

and educated at the

Canadian Academy Canadian Academy (CA; カナディアン・アカデミー ''Kanadian Akademii''), founded in 1913, is an independent pre-K – grade 12 international school in Kobe, Japan. The day and boarding school consists of an elementary school, middle schoo ...

in Japan.Maclay, Kathleen
"Professor emeritus Donald Shively, expert on Japanese life and cultures, dies,"
''UCBerkeley News.'' August 17, 2005. Years of study in the United States began when he entered Harvard in 1940, but his college years were interrupted by war. In

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, Shively was a Japanese language officer. He was promoted to the rank of major in the

United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...

, and his service was marked by the Bronze Star Medal. His training during WWII at

Camp Ritchie Fort Ritchie at Cascade, Maryland was a military installation southwest of Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania and southeast of Waynesboro in the area of South Mountain. Following the 1995 Base Realignment and Closure Commission, it closed in 19 ...

's Military Intelligence Training Center classifies him as one of the

Ritchie Boys The Ritchie Boys were a special collection of soldiers, with sizable numbers of German-Austrian recruits, of Military Intelligence Service officers and enlisted men of World War II who were trained at Camp Ritchie in Washington County, Maryland. ...

. Shively received his bachelor's degree from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

in 1946 (Class of '44). He continued his studies in Cambridge, and he earned a master's degree in 1947. He was awarded a Ph.D. in 1951.

Career

Shively began his teaching career at the University of California, Berkeley. He was at Berkeley from 1950 to 1962. During this period, he edited the ''

Journal of Asian Studies ''The Journal of Asian Studies'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Asian Studies, covering Asian studies, ranging from history, the arts, social sciences, to phil ...

'' (1955–1959). From 1962 through 1964, he joined the faculty of Stanford. He then moved east to return to Harvard as a member of the faculty from 1964 to 1983. He was director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies from 1981 through 1983, and also editor of the '' Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies'' from 1975 to 1983. In 1983, Shively returned to teach at Berkeley. He was also the head of the university's East Asian library until he retired in 1992. Dr. Shively died of Shy–Drager syndrome at the age of 84 in Oakland, California.

Selected works

Most notable among his works covering popular culture in the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characte ...

of Japan is the translation of ''

The Love Suicides at Amijima ''The Love Suicides at Amijima'' (''Shinjū Ten no Amijima'' or ''Shinjūten no Amijima'' 心中天網島) is a domestic play (''sewamono'') by Japanese playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon. Originally written for the ''bunraku'' puppet theatre, it wa ...

'', a famous

kabuki is a classical form of Japanese dance- drama. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily-stylised performances, the often-glamorous costumes worn by performers, and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers. Kabuki is though ...

play written by

Chikamatsu Monzaemon was a Japanese dramatist of jōruri, the form of puppet theater that later came to be known as bunraku, and the live-actor drama, kabuki. The ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' has written that he is "widely regarded as the greatest Japanese dramatis ...

. In a statistical overview derived from writings by and about Donald Shively, OCLC/

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the O ...

encompasses roughly 40+ works in 90+ publications in 3 languages and 3,000+ library holdings. WorldCat Identities

Shively, Donald H. (Donald Howard) 1921-
/ref> * ''The Love Suicide at Amijima: a study of a Japanese Domestic Tragedy by Chikamatsu Monzaemon'' (1953) * ''Personality in Japanese History'' (1970) with Albert Craig * ''Tradition and Modernization in Japanese Culture'' (1971) * ''The Cambridge History of Japan,'' Vol. 2, ''Heian Japan'' (1999)

Honors

* Order of the Rising Sun, 1982.

Early life

Career

Selected works

Honors

Notes

Further reading