New Books Network
Japanese Studies
Japanese Studies May 7, 2021

Women and Networks in Nineteenth-Century Japan

Bettina Gramlich-Oka and Anne Walthall

Hosted by Jingyi Li
Although scholars have emphasized the importance of women’s networks for civil society in twentieth-century Japan, Women and Networks in Nineteenth-Century Japan (University of Michigan Press, 2020) is the first book to …

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Japanese Studies April 29, 2021

Beyond Filial Piety

Rethinking Aging and Caregiving in Contemporary East Asian Societies

Jeanne Shea, Katrina Moore, and Hong Zhang

Hosted by Jingyi Li
Known for a tradition of Confucian filial piety, East Asian societies have some of the oldest and most rapidly aging populations on earth. Today these societies are experiencing unprecedented social …
East Asian Studies April 26, 2021

Defining Shugendo

Critical Studies on Japanese Mountain Religion

Andrea Castiglioni, Fabio Rambelli, and Carina Roth

Hosted by Daigengna Duoer
Andrea Castiglioni, Fabio Rambelli and Carina Roth's edited volume Defining Shugendo: Critical Studies on Japanese Mountain Religion (Bloomsbury, 2020) presents the newest studies on Shugendō-related practices and traditions from both Japanese and …
East Asian Studies April 23, 2021

Japan's Imperial House in the Postwar Era, 1945-2019

Kenneth J. Ruoff

Hosted by Nathan Hopson
Ken Ruoff’s Japan’s Imperial House in the Postwar Era, 1945-2019 (Harvard UP, 2020), is a revised and expanded version of the author’s The People’s Emperor: Democracy and the Japanese Monarchy, 1945-199 …
Japanese Studies April 22, 2021

Tropics of Savagery

The Culture of Japanese Empire in Comparative Frame

Robert Thomas Tierney

Hosted by Samee Siddiqui
Tropics of Savagery: The Culture of Japanese Empire in Comparative Frame (U California Press, 2010) is an incisive and provocative study of the figures and tropes of “savagery” in Japanese …
East Asian Studies April 21, 2021

Into the Field

Human Scientists of Transwar Japan

Miriam L. Kingsberg Kadia

Hosted by Daigengna Duoer
How did Japanese academics study their "fields" in places like Manchuria and Inner Mongolia in the transwar decades? How did they transform in the postwar, under the US Occupation, and …
East Asian Studies April 15, 2021

Wings for the Rising Sun

A Transnational History of Japanese Aviation

Jürgen P. Melzer

Hosted by Nathan Hopson
Jürgen Melzer’s Wings for the Rising Sun: A Transnational History of Japanese Aviation (Harvard UP, 2020) traces the history of Japanese aviation from its origins with hot-air balloons in the …
Japanese Studies April 13, 2021

Flowering Tales

Women Exorcising History in Heian Japan

Takeshi Watanabe

Hosted by Jingyi Li
Telling stories: that sounds innocuous enough. But for the first chronicle in the Japanese vernacular, A Tale of Flowering Fortunes (Eiga monogatari), there was more to worry about than a …
Japanese Studies April 9, 2021

Transpacific Correspondence

Dispatches from Japan's Black Studies

Yuichiro Onishi and Fumiko Sakashita

Hosted by Felicity Stone-Richards
Transpacific Correspondences: Dispatches from Japan’s Black Studies, an essay collection edited by Dr. Yuichiro Onishi and Dr Fumiko Sakashita, introduces a little-known, but critical history of Black Studies in Japan …
Asian Review of Books April 8, 2021

Tokyo Before Tokyo

Power and Magic in the Shogun’s City of Edo

Timon Screech

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
In 1800, the Shogun’s chief minister wrote the following about the city of Edo: "Someone said that if Edo did not have frequent fires, then people would be more showy …
Japanese Studies April 1, 2021

Voices of Early Modern Japan

Contemporary Accounts of Daily Life During the Age of the Shoguns

Constantine Nomikos Vaporis

Hosted by Jingyi Li
In this newly revised and updated 2nd edition of Voices of Early Modern Japan: Contemporary Accounts of Daily Life During the Age of the Shoguns (Routledge, 2020), Constantine Nomikos Vaporis …
Japanese Studies April 1, 2021

The Dutch Language in Japan (1600-1900)

A Cultural and Sociolinguistic Study of Dutch as a Contact Language in Tokugawa and Meiji Japan

Christopher Joby

Hosted by Jingyi Li
In The Dutch Language in Japan (1600-1900): A Cultural and Sociolinguistic Study of Dutch as a Contact Language in Tokugawa and Meiji Japan (Brill, 2020), Christopher Joby offers the first book-length account of …
East Asian Studies March 29, 2021

More Than Medals

A History of the Paralympics and Disability Sports in Postwar Japan

Dennis J. Frost

Hosted by Nathan Hopson
Dennis Frost’s More than Medals: A History of the Paralympics and Disability Sports in Postwar Japan (Cornell University Press, 2021) is a history of disability sports in modern Japan. The 1964 …
Japanese Studies March 26, 2021

Pleasure in Profit

Popular Prose in Seventeenth-Century Japan

Laura Moretti

Hosted by Jingyi Li
In the seventeenth century, Japanese popular prose flourished as waves of newly literate readers gained access to the printed word. Commercial publishers released vast numbers of titles in response to …
East Asian Studies March 24, 2021

Prisoners of the Empire

Inside Japanese POW Camps

Sarah Kovner

Hosted by Nathan Hopson
Sarah Kovner’s Prisoners of the Empire: Inside Japanese POW Camps (Harvard UP, 2020) is a nuanced look at the experiences, narratives―and the popular/historical memories of those experiences and narratives―of World …
Japanese Studies March 23, 2021

Licentious Fictions

Ninjō and the Nineteenth-Century Japanese Novel

Daniel Poch

Hosted by Jingyi Li
Nineteenth-century Japanese literary discourse and narrative developed a striking preoccupation with ninjō—literally “human emotion,” but often used in reference to amorous feeling and erotic desire. For many writers and critics …
Japanese Studies March 18, 2021

The Global Education Effect and Japan

Constructing New Borders and Identification Practices

Neriko Musha Doerr

Hosted by Jingyi Li
The Global Education Effect and Japan: Constructing New Borders and Identification Practices (Routledge, 2020) volume investigates the "global education effect"--the impact of global education initiatives on institutional and individual practices …
Japanese Studies March 18, 2021

Japan's Russia

Challenging the East-West Paradigm

Olga V. Solovieva and Sho Konishi

Hosted by Jingyi Li
The Russian cultural presence in Japan after the Meiji Revolution was immense. Indeed, Japanese cultural negotiations with Russian intellectuals and Russian literature, art, theology and political thought, formed an important …
Japanese Studies March 17, 2021

Shimaji Mokurai and the Reconception of Religion and the Secular in Modern Japan

Hans Martin Krämer

Hosted by Samee Siddiqui
Religion is at the heart of such ongoing political debates in Japan as the constitutionality of official government visits to Yasukuni Shrine, yet the very categories that frame these debates …
Japanese Studies March 16, 2021

Reflecting the Past

Place, Language, and Principle in Japan's Medieval Mirror Genre

Erin L. Brightwell

Hosted by Jingyi Li
Reflecting the Past: Place, Language, and Principle in Japan's Medieval Mirror Genre (Harvard UP, 2020) is the first English-language study to address the role of historiography in medieval Japan, an age …