Contemporary Japan

NEW CJ issue 37-2 incl articles on faith talk in political rhetoric @ernils.bsky.social, the afterlife of PMs (T. Tsuda), Korean intl school (K. Hirano), Buraku literacy movements (C. Fusari), elderly reemployment (K. Haga) & Takarazuka fandom (Z. Baraniak-Hirata) www.tandfonline.com/toc/rcoj20/3...

What is the role of documentary literature 記録文学 in narratives of Japan’s colonial war & military defeat? Sejin Jeong explores the relationships between individual memories, subjective narratives & collective history through the stories and receptions of 国境物語 and 流れる星は生きている doi.org/10.1080/1869...

Through pioneering research of underground wartime Chinese newspapers, writings of former labor activists, documents at the National Archives of Thailand & personal interviews, Katsuyuki Takahashi traces the activities of Japanese companies in Thailand during the Pacific War doi.org/10.1080/1869...

CJ's Special Issue 'Art & Regional Revitalization - Case Studies from Japan' www.tandfonline.com/toc/rcoj20/3... incl. research on art festivals, tourism, akiya & the global countryside is introduced in today's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung @tandfresearch.bsky.social zeitung.faz.net/faz/geistesw...

Gracia Liu-Farrer offers a critical analysis of the “discourse of ‘no-immigration’ and of the “identity-binary of ‘Japanese’ versus ‘foreigner’”, and argues that “the normalization of exceptions and the acceptance of differences” is transforming Japan into an immigrant nation doi.org/10.1080/1869...

Laura Dales & Nora Kottmann analyze the changing perceptions of being single in Japan and the rise of “sorokatsu” ソロ活. Using a large-scale survey, they trace the emergence of a "hyper-solo-society" & how the growing number of singles influence the meaning a normal adult life doi.org/10.1080/1869...

What is the relationship between whaling, heritage, tourism & community? Through ethnographic research, @aikerots.bsky.social examines festivals in 3 Japanese towns as case studies of whaling as a social imaginary and reveals how heritage-making is a future-oriented endeavor doi.org/10.1080/1869...

How do older people to reconstruct their identities and attitudes regarding work after #retirement? Kazue Haga uses Röpke’s filter model to analyze how post-retirement workers at a job agency pursue self-identity reconstruction, entrepreneurial strategies, and co-learning doi.org/10.1080/1869...

Independence through diversification: Vincent B. Lesch @uniheidelberg.bsky.social examines how Japanese #NPO Ishintai UNESCO Club has navigated the media & the pandemic through a successful combination of methods to find new ways to communicate with stakeholders #fundraising doi.org/10.1080/1869...

Kristin Surak @lsesociology.bsky.social analyses a tea ceremony at Yasukuni Shrine as a complex process of myth-making. She examines how values of peace and “Asian universalism” are invoked to override recognition of imperialist aggression and violence through “a cup of tea” doi.org/10.1080/1869...

Many thanks to our fantastic authors and reviewers, including Deborah Giustini, Barbara Greene, Jincao Wang, @takutamaki.bsky.social, @scma.bsky.social, Mariana Alonso Ishihara, Petter Lindgren, @sophieling.bsky.social, Florian Coulmas, Philippe Bürgin, Jonathan Krautter

Contemporary Japan Volume 37, Issue 1 of Contemporary Japan

The book review section covers publications on Jesuit enterprise in Japan in the 16th & 17th centuries, on the impact of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on psychological science, on East-West encounters in Japanese art, and on the history of the Japanese business community in Düsseldorf

Check out CJ's new issue, incl research on labor market dualization; Murakami’s Popular Hits of the Showa Era; media discourses of nuclear power; Japanese identity & railway technology; Nikkei narratives of multiculturalism; populism in Japanese politics www.tandfonline.com/toc/rcoj20/3...

S. Porter reviews Brett Walker’s Yukikaze’s War @cambridgeup.bsky.social: "the first work of its kind" to focus on the experiences of a single warship from the Pacific theatre to its postwar afterlife; "a superbly written narrative", "eminently readable and often gripping" doi.org/10.1080/1869...

“The expertise brought together on these pages is impressive, and all the [...] topics discussed benefit by being put into the context of the Postwar.” Florian Coulmas reviews Simon Avenell’s ed. volume Reconsidering Postwar Japanese History @amsterdamupress.bsky.social doi.org/10.1080/1869...

#OpenAccess Helena Hof examines knowledge-intensive/“innovation-driven” migrant entrepreneurship in Japan. She offers case studies of how founders navigate Japan’s legal and business norms, and suggests how positive deviance can contribute to transforming social norms doi.org/10.1080/1869...

How does the Japanese press portray Afghan, Burmese & Ukrainian asylum seekers? Mei Mitsui & David Green use frame analysis and suggest that there is generally positive coverage & a comparatively more positive image of Ukrainians, regardless of newspapers' political leanings doi.org/10.1080/1869...

#OpenAccess What factors contribute to an individual experiencing #ijime? Using PISA 2018 data, Teruki Sanada @teeeeruki.bsky.social assesses the relationship between school bullying, socioeconomic status & academic achievement in Japanese schools @tandfresearch.bsky.social doi.org/10.1080/1869...

New #openaccess article by Sayako Ono analyzes legal and institutional changes regarding sexual violence from comparative and historical perspectives. A timely article amidst recent issues regarding Fuji TV & Ito Shiori's documentary @tandfresearch.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....