Series editor: Joy Hendry, Oxford Brookes University
Submissions from prospective authors are welcomed, and enquiries should be sent in the first instance to the series editor at [email protected].
Editorial Board:
Pamela Asquith, University of Alberta
Eyal Ben Ari, Kinneret Academic College, Sea of Galilee, Israel
Hirochika Nakamaki, Suita City Museum, Japan
Christoph Brumann, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany
Henry Johnson, University of Otago, New Zealand
Founder Member of the Editorial Board:
Jan van Bremen, University of Leiden
Routledge is very proud to be publishing this important series, which has already signed up a good list of high quality books on interesting topics, and has a truly international range of authors and editors.
A key aim of the series is to present studies that offer a deep understanding of aspects of Japanese society and culture to offset the impression of constant change and frivolity that so tempts the mass media around the world. Living in Japan brings anyone into contact with the fervent mood of change, and former residents from many other countries enjoy reading about their temporary home, but there is a demand also to penetrate less obvious elements of this temporary life. Anthropologists specialise in digging beneath the surface, in peeling off and examining layers of cultural wrapping, and in gaining an understanding of language and communication that goes beyond formal presentation and informal frolicking. This series will help to open the eyes of readers around the world from many backgrounds to the work of these diligent anthropologists researching the social life of Japan.
By Sébastien Penmellen Boret
July 20, 2016
Tree burial, a new form of disposal for the cremated remains of the dead, was created in 1999 by Chisaka Genpo, the head priest of a Zen Buddhist temple in northern Japan. Instead of a conventional family gravestone, perpetuating the continuity of a household and its identity, tree burial uses vast...
By Tullio Federico Lobetti
January 21, 2016
Ascetic practices are a common feature of religion in Japan, practiced by different religious traditions. This book looks at these ascetic practices in an inter-sectarian and inter-doctrinal fashion, in order to highlight the underlying themes common to all forms of asceticism. It does so by ...
Edited
By Daniel T. Reff, Luis Frois SJ, Richard Danford
December 09, 2015
In 1585, at the height of Jesuit missionary activity in Japan, which was begun by Francis Xavier in 1549, Luis Frois, a long-time missionary in Japan, drafted the earliest systematic comparison of Western and Japanese cultures. This book constitutes the first critical English-language edition of ...
By Carolyn Stevens
July 23, 2015
Disability and chronic illness represents a special kind of cultural diversity, the "other" to "normal" able-bodiedness. Most studies of disability consider disability in North American or European contexts; and studies of diversity in Japan consider ethnic and cultural diversity, but not the ...
By Genaro Castro-Vázquez
August 15, 2014
Based on extensive original research, this book explores the early educational experiences of foreign children in Japan. It considers foreign children’s experiences of Japanese schools, examines the special tutoring such children often have to improve their language proficiency, and explores the ...
Edited
By Hikaru Suzuki
July 04, 2014
This book, based on extensive original research, explores the various ways in which Japanese people think about death and how they approach the process of dying and death. It shows how new forms of funeral ceremonies have been developed by the funeral industry, how traditional grave burial is being...
By Anne Mette Fisker-Nielsen
November 11, 2013
Presenting a study of politics at grassroots level among young Japanese, this book examines the alliance between the religious movement Soka Gakkai (the ‘Value-creation Society’) and Komeito (the ‘Clean Government Party’), which shared power with the Liberal Democratic Party from 1999 to 2009. ...
Edited
By Pamela J. Asquith, Kinji Imanishi
September 05, 2002
Although Seibutsu no Sekai (The World of Living Things), the seminal 1941 work of Kinji Imanishi, had an enormous impact in Japan, both on scholars and on the general public, very little is known about it in the English-speaking world. This book makes the complete text available in English for the ...
By Christoph Brumann
October 29, 2013
As the historic capital of the country and the stronghold of the nation’s most celebrated traditions, the city of Kyoto holds a unique place in the Japanese imagination. Widely praised for the beauty of its townscape and natural environments, it is both a popular destination for tourists and home ...
Edited
By Richard Ronald, Allison Alexy
October 12, 2011
In the Japanese language the word ‘ie’ denotes both the materiality of homes and family relations within. The traditional family and family house - often portrayed in ideal terms as key foundations of Japanese culture and society - have been subject to significant changes in recent years. This book...
By Yeeshan Chan
January 29, 2013
This book relates the experiences of the zanryu-hojin - the Japanese civilians, mostly women and children, who were abandoned in Manchuria after the end of the Second World War when Japan’s puppet state in Manchuria ended, and when most Japanese who has been based there returned to Japan. Many ...
By Kaeko Chiba
January 29, 2013
This book examines the complex relationship between class and gender dynamics among tea ceremony (chadō) practitioners in Japan. Focusing on practitioners in a provincial city, Akita, the book surveys the rigid, hierarchical chadō system at grass roots level. Making critical use of Bourdieu’s idea ...