New Books Network
Japanese Studies
Nordic Asia Podcast January 7, 2022

COVID-19 and Vaccine Hesitancy in Japan

Kamila Szczepanska and Yoko Demelius

Hosted by Satoko Naito
Anti-vaccination movements pose an increasing threat to global public health, but what of vaccine hesitancy? Join us for a discussion on the effects of vaccine hesitancy in Japan during the …

Japanese Studies

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Interviews with scholars of Japan about their new books.

Japanese Studies January 3, 2022

The Politics of International Marriage in Japan

Viktoriya Kim, Nelia Balgoa, and Beverley Anne Yamamoto

Hosted by Jingyi Li
Viktoriya Kim, Nelia Balgoa, and Beverley Anne Yamamoto's book The Politics of International Marriage in Japan (Rutgers UP, 2021) provides an in-depth exploration and analysis of marriages between Japanese nationals and migrants …
Japanese Studies December 28, 2021

Ghastly Tales from the Yotsuya Kaidan

Takashi Saitō

Hosted by Jingyi Li
Ghastly Tales from the Yotsuya Kaidan (Chisokudo, 2020) is a newly revised and corrected translation of what is perhaps the most famous and oft told tales of horror in Japan. The …
Nordic Asia Podcast December 27, 2021

East Asian Cold War History with a Maritime Twist

Kuan-Jen Chen

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
When did the Cold War in East Asia really begin? According to ADI-NIAS researcher Kuan-Jen Chen, the answer is 1945 – if we view the Cold War through a maritime …
Japanese Studies December 22, 2021

Pilgrims Until We Die

Unending Pilgrimage in Shikoku

Ian Reader and John Shultz

Hosted by Raditya Nuradi
Ian Reader and John Shultz's Pilgrims Until We Die: Unending Pilgrimage in Shikoku (Oxford University Press, 2021)" explores the Shikoku pilgrimage by focusing on the themes of repetition and perpetual …
Japanese Studies December 22, 2021

A Fictional Commons

Natsume Soseki and the Properties of Modern Literature

Michael K. Bourdaghs

Hosted by Jingyi Li
Modernity arrived in Japan, as elsewhere, through new forms of ownership. In A Fictional Commons: Natsume Soseki and the Properties of Modern Literature (Duke UP, 2021), Michael K. Bourdaghs explores …
Japanese Studies December 20, 2021

Revisiting Japan's Restoration

New Approaches to the Study of the Meiji Transformation

Timothy D. Amos and Akiko Ishii

Hosted by Jingyi Li
Revisiting Japan's Restoration: New Approaches to the Study of the Meiji Transformation (Routledge, 2021) presents the reader with thirty-one short chapters that capture an exciting new moment in the study …
Japanese Studies January 17, 2022

Cultivating Femininity

Women and Tea Culture in Edo and Meiji Japan

Rebecca Corbett

Hosted by Takeshi Morisato
The overwhelming majority of tea practitioners in contemporary Japan are women, but there has been little discussion on their historical role in tea culture (chanoyu). In Cultivating Femininity: Women and …
Japanese Studies January 3, 2022

Kenkoku University and the Experience of Pan-Asianism

Education in the Japanese Empire

Yuka Hiruma Kishida

Hosted by Shatrunjay Mall
Kenkoku University and the Experience of Pan-Asianism: Education in the Japanese Empire (Bloomsbury, 2019) by Yuka Hiruma Kishida makes a fresh contribution to the recent effort to re-examine the Japanese …
East Asian Studies December 17, 2021

A Medicated Empire

The Pharmaceutical Industry and Modern Japan

Timothy M. Yang

Hosted by Nathan Hopson
Timothy Yang’s A Medicated Empire: The Pharmaceutical Industry and Modern Japan (Cornell 2021) is a case study of Hoshi Pharmaceutical, a Japanese drug company that exemplified the push for a …
Japanese Studies December 16, 2021

Anime

A Critical Introduction

Rayna Denison

Hosted by Amanda Kennell
Rayna Denison’s Anime: A Critical Introduction (Bloomsbury, 2015) uses genre as a window into the evolving global phenomenon of Japanese animation. Denison’s wide-ranging analysis tackles the anime themselves – including classics such …
Asian Review of Books December 16, 2021

War and Resistance in the Philippines 1942-1944

James Kelly Morningstar

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
December 2021 marks the 80th anniversary of Pearl Harbor and the American entry into the Second World War. In fact, this interview was recorded on December 12th: the 80th anniversary …
Japanese Studies December 15, 2021

Comics and the Origins of Manga

A Revisionist History

Eike Exner

Hosted by Jingyi Li
Japanese comics, commonly known as manga, are a global sensation. Critics, scholars, and everyday readers have often viewed this artform through an Orientalist framework, treating manga as the exotic antithesis …
Japanese Studies December 14, 2021

Indian Migrants in Tokyo

A Study of Socio-Cultural, Religious, and Working Worlds

Megha Wadhwa

Hosted by Shatrunjay Mall
Japan is often imagined as a homogeneous society with few immigrant communities, but it is increasingly home to migrants from across the world. How does an extended stay in Japan …
Japanese Studies December 8, 2021

Japan on American TV

Screaming Samurai Join Anime Clubs in the Land of the Lost

Alisa Freedman

Hosted by Jingyi Li
Alisa Freedman's book Japan on American TV: Screaming Samurai Join Anime Clubs in the Land of the Lost (Association for Asian Studies, 2021) explores political, economic, and cultural issues underlying depictions …
Japanese Studies November 29, 2021

Japanese Philosophy in the Making 2

Borderline Interrogations

John Maraldo

Hosted by Jingyi Li
The second of three volumes of essays that engage Japanese philosophers as intercultural thinkers, this collection critically probes seminal works for their historical significance and contemporary relevance. Japanese Philosophy in …
Diplomatic History November 24, 2021

Unconditional

The Japanese Surrender in World War II

Marc Gallicchio

Hosted by Grant Golub
Signed on September 2, 1945 aboard the American battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay by Japanese and Allied leaders, the instrument of surrender formally ended the war in the Pacific …
Japanese Studies November 18, 2021

Invisibility by Design

Women and Labor in Japan's Digital Economy

Gabriella Lukács

Hosted by Jingyi Li
In the wake of labor market deregulation during the 2000s, online content sharing and social networking platforms were promoted in Japan as new sites of work that were accessible to …
Japanese Studies November 16, 2021

American Survivors

Trans-Pacific Memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Naoko Wake

Hosted by Ran Zwigenberg
The little-known history of U.S. survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings reveals captivating trans-Pacific memories of war, illness, gender, and community. The fact that there are indeed American survivors …
Japanese Studies November 11, 2021

Japan's Nationalist Right in the Internet Age

Online Media and Grassroots Conservative Activism

Jeffrey J. Hall

Hosted by Jingyi Li
Japan's nationalist right have used the internet to organize offline activism in increasingly visible ways. Jeffrey J. Hall, investigates the role of internet-mediated activism in Japan's ongoing historical and territorial disputes …