The aim of this series is to publish original, high-quality work by both new and established scholars on all aspects of contemporary Japan.
By Marc Yamada
November 01, 2019
This book provides the first interdisciplinary examination of the popular fiction and film of the “lost decades” of Japan’s Heisei period (1989–2019). Presenting original analysis of major Heisei writers, filmmakers, and manga artists, the chapters examine the work of Urasawa Naoki, Kurosawa ...
Edited
By Yoshikazu Shiobara, Kohei Kawabata, Joel Matthews
August 05, 2019
The recent manifestation of exclusionism in Japan has emerged at a time of intensified neoliberal economic policies, increased cross-border migration brought on by globalization, the elevated threat of global terrorism, heightened tensions between East Asian states over historical and territorial ...
By David Stahl
July 23, 2019
This book provides a comprehensive analysis of major works in Japanese literature and film through the interpretive lens of trauma and PTSD studies. Focusing critical attention on the psychodynamics and enduring psychosocial aftereffects of social trauma, it also evaluates the themes of ...
By Rachael Hutchinson
June 10, 2019
Examining a wide range of Japanese videogames, including arcade fighting games, PC-based strategy games and console JRPGs, this book assesses their cultural significance and shows how gameplay and context can be analyzed together to understand videogames as a dynamic mode of artistic expression. ...
By Jackie J. Kim-Wachutka
December 03, 2018
Presenting the voices of a unique group within contemporary Japanese society—Zainichi women—this book provides a fresh insight into their experiences of oppression and marginalization that over time have led to liberation and empowerment. Often viewed as unimportant and inconsequential, these women...
By Shoko Yoneyama
November 26, 2018
‘Postmodern animism’ first emerged in grassroots Japan in the aftermath of mercury poisoning in Minamata and the nuclear meltdown in Fukushima. Fusing critiques of modernity with intangible cultural heritages, it represents a philosophy of the life-world, where nature is a manifestation of a ...
By Nakano Satoshi
September 04, 2018
The first-ever attempt to paint a full-scale portrait of the Japanese Occupation of Southeast Asia during the Asia-Pacific War (1942–5). This book draws on the huge body of available narrative—military documents, bureaucratic records and personal accounts of combatants and civilians, including ...
By Yukiko Nishikawa
September 08, 2018
While Japanese pacifism is usually seen as a national policy or an ideology rooted in the provision of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, it cannot be adequately understood without grasping Japanese social discourses on peace, war and justice. The perspective of political sociology provides a ...
By Peter Berton, Sam Atherton
June 04, 2018
This book provides an historical overview of the Japanese Communist Party from its foundation to the present. It outlines the development of the party, explores its stance on key issues and discusses how the party has set a high moral tone, avoiding compromising coalitions with other parties, being...
Edited
By Patrick Heinrich, Christian Galan
May 10, 2018
Japan is not only the oldest society in the world today, but also the oldest society to have ever existed. This aging trend, however, presents many challenges to contemporary Japan, as it permeates all areas of life, from the economy and welfare to social cohesion and population decline. Nobody is ...
By Linda White
April 20, 2018
The Japanese koseki system is the legal and social structure keeping record of all Japanese citizens. Determined by the Civil Code and the Koseki Law, for activists challenging it, the koseki is also an ideological structure, which has produced patriarchal control through single-surname households....
Edited
By David Chiavacci, Carola Hommerich
December 21, 2017
In recent decades Japan has changed from a strongly growing, economically successful nation regarded as prime example of social equality and inclusion, to a nation with a stagnating economy, a shrinking population and a very high proportion of elderly people. Within this, new forms of inequality ...