In Jyana S. Browne’s Modern and Contemporary Japanese Theatre course at the University of Washington, students study Japanese playwrights who actively sought social change through public engagement. Those students engage the public on their own, as well, by contributing information on those playwrights to Wikipedia.
Student editors have created well-researched articles about award-winning playwrights Yoji Sakate and Rio Kishida. Interestingly, the work of these student editors is actually more comprehensive than the entries on the Japanese Wikipedia.
The style section of Toshiki Okada now includes several scholarly viewpoints where it had previously only included one; the article as a whole has 24 when it once only had six. Likewise, the article on Kobo Abe, a writer whose sensibility has been compared to Franz Kafka, has been greatly expanded to include biographical information more details about his career.
Thanks to Jyana Browne and her students for these meaningful contributions to the representation of Japanese theater on the English Wikipedia.
Photo: “Flag of Japan” by Toshihiro Oimatsu from Tokyo, Japan – The sun and the moonUploaded by Smooth_O. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
