Joyce Ackroyd

Joyce Irene Ackroyd, OBE (23 November 1918 – 30 August 1991) was an Australian academic, translator, author and editor. She was a scholar of Japanese language and literature.

Dr Joyce Ackroyd, 1954

Early life

Ackroyd was awarded a PhD in Japanese and Japanese Studies at Cambridge University in 1951.[1] Her doctoral thesis investigated the political career and writings of the Edo period Confucianist Arai Hakuseki.

Career

Ackroyd served was a member of the faculty of the Australian National University in Canberra until the mid-1960s.[1]

Ackroyd moved to Brisbane in 1965, when she was appointed the foundation professor of the new Department of Japanese Language and Literature.[2] She helped to develop the University of Queensland's School of Japanese during the 1970s and 1980s. She was influential in building the program into one of Australia's main centres for Japanese studies.

In 1969, she showed prescience when she introduced a course in standard Chinese, which was not then considered to be a priority language at Australian universities.

Ackroyd's studies of Hakuseki culminated in her translations of Oritaku Shiba no Ki, published in 1980 as Told Round a Brushwood Fire: The Autobiography of Arai Hakuseki, and the Tokushi Yoron, published as Lessons from history : the Tokushi yoron in 1982.

Joyce Ackroyd was awarded the Order of the British Empire - Officer (Civil) in 1982. The following year she was awarded the Yamagata Bantō prize by the prefectural government of Osaka for her outstanding contributions to introducing Japanese culture abroad. The Japanese government awarded her Order of the Precious Crown, Third Class. She retired in 1983.[2]

Legacy

Ackroyd became the first woman to have her name attached to a building at the University of Queensland, in 1990.[2]

Joyce Ackroyd died on 30 August 1991.[3] She was survived by her husband, Frank Warren (John) Speed.[2]

Selected works

In a statistical overview derived from writings by and about Joyce Ackroyd, OCLC/WorldCat encompasses roughly 20+ works in 40+ publications in 3 languages and 500+ library holdings.[4]

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries.
  • The Unknown Japanese (1968)
  • Japan Today (1970)
  • Discovering Japan: a Text-book of Japanese language for Secondary Schools (1971)
  • Told Round a Brushwood Fire: the Autobiography of Arai Hakuseki by Hakuseki Arai (1979), translated by Ackroyd
  • Lessons from History: the Tokushi yoron by Hakuseki Arai (1982), translated by Ackroyd
  • Indecent Exposure in Japanese Literature (1982)

Honours

Notes
  1. Neustupný, J.V. (1991), Obituary – Joyce Irene Ackroyd (1918-1991), Australian Academy of the Humanities
  2. Gottlieb, Nanette. "Ackroyd, Joyce Irene (1918–1991)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.
  3. "Ackroyd, Joyce Irene," The Australian Academy of the Humanities Proceedings 1991, p. 73 (at PDF page 69 of 124. Archived 2009-09-15 at the Wayback Machine
  4. WorldCat Identities Archived 2010-12-30 at the Wayback Machine: Ackroyd, J. I. (Joyce Irene)
  5. "No. 49009". The London Gazette (Supplement). 11 June 1982. p. 34.
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