The aim of this series is to publish original, high-quality work by both new and established scholars on all aspects of contemporary Japan.
Edited
By Nina Cornyetz, J. Keith Vincent
October 12, 2011
How did nerves and neuroses take the place of ghosts and spirits in Meiji Japan? How does Natsume Soseki’s canonical novel Kokoro pervert the Freudian teleology of sexual development? What do we make of Jacques Lacan’s infamous claim that because of the nature of their language the Japanese people ...
By Alisa Gaunder
October 12, 2011
Political Reform in Japan argues that the quality of political leadership is the crucial determinant of whether parties in positions of dominance, like the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan, pass or reject policies such as electoral system and campaign finance reforms that could harm the party's ...
By Kim D. Reimann
October 12, 2011
Over the past two decades, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have exploded in number and emerged as a new force in international and transnational politics. Why, however, do some countries nonetheless have more active NGO sectors than others? Using the case of Japan, this book uncovers ...
Edited
By Ralf Bebenroth, Toshihiro Kanai
July 11, 2011
Human resource management systems differ across corporations around the world. Japan has unique characteristics that create specific challenges for HRM and there is currently a lack of research focusing on Japanese HR issues available to westerners. This book examines the major challenges and ...
By Yoko Tokuhiro
May 17, 2011
The phenomenon of bankonka – ‘postponement of marriage’ – is increasingly reported in contemporary Japanese media, clearly illustrating the changing patterns of modern lifestyles and attitudes towards marriage, personal obligation and ambition. This is the first book in recent years to explore the ...
By Joseph Ferguson
May 12, 2011
This book provides a comprehensive survey of Japanese-Russian relations from the end of the Russo-Japanese War until the present. Based on extensive original research in both Japanese and Russian sources, it traces the development of relations from the tumultuous pre-war period, through the Second ...
By Jonathan D. Mackintosh
April 20, 2011
Japan’s first professionally produced, commercially marketed and nationally distributed gay lifestyle magazine, Barazoku (‘The Rose Tribes’), was launched in 1971. Publicly declaring the beauty and normality of homosexual desire, Barazoku electrified the male homosexual world whilst scandalising ...
By Yasuko Claremont
April 11, 2011
Ôe Kenzaburô was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994. This critical study examines Ôe’s entire career from 1957 – 2006 and includes chapters on Ôe’s later novels not published in English. Through close readings at different points in Ôe’s career Yasuko Claremont establishes the spiritual...
By Julian Dierkes
March 01, 2011
How did East and West Germany and Japan reconstitute national identity after World War II? Did all three experience parallel reactions to national trauma and reconstruction? History education shaped how these nations reconceived their national identities. Because the content of history education ...
By Isa Ducke
March 24, 2011
Using case studies, interviews, and empirical sources, this book analyzes the strategies and impact of Internet use by civil society actors and asks how useful it is for their work – does the availability of Internet tools change the way citizens’ groups work, does it influence their effectiveness,...
By Sarah Chaplin
October 20, 2010
Drawing on theories of place, consumption and identity, Sarah Chaplin details the evolution of the love hotel in urban Japan since the 1950s. Love hotels emerged in the late 1950s following a ban of licensed prostitution, then were extremely popular in the 1970s, were then legislated against in the...
By Philip A. Seaton
November 19, 2010
Japan's Contested War Memories is an important and significant book that explores the struggles within contemporary Japanese society to come to terms with Second World War history. Focusing particularly on 1972 onwards, the period starts with the normalization of relations with China and ...