Routledge Contemporary Japan Series
About the Book Series
The aim of this series is to publish original, high-quality work by both new and established scholars on all aspects of contemporary Japan.
Literary and Artistic Japan Behind the Iron Curtain
1st Edition
Edited
By Irina Holca, George T. Sipos
September 30, 2025
This book examines the public perception, scholarly reception, and critical analysis of Japan through translations of its literature and artistic endeavours within the temporal frame and geopolitical confines of the countries that were either occupied or left under the influence of the Soviet Union...
The Future of Humans and Emotional Machines: Narratives from Japanese Culture in the 21st Century
1st Edition
Edited
By Elena Giannoulis
July 18, 2025
This book explores human‑machine interaction in Japan, providing a new focus on how and in what form people build affective bonds to new technologies. To gain insights into the feelings, identities, fears, and desires of people in our contemporary society, this book brings together perspectives ...
Japanese Whaling and the People Behind It: A Look from Within
1st Edition
By Nadzeya Shutava
June 27, 2025
This book explores the recent developments in global and Japanese whaling from the viewpoint of the members of the Japanese whaling community, a perspective that is largely neglected and misinterpreted. Japanese whaling has been one of the most contentious issues in global environmental governance ...
Critical Review of the Abe Administration: Politics of Conservatism and Realism
1st Edition
Edited
By Yoichi Funabashi, Koji Nakakita
May 27, 2025
The second Abe administration, which lasted for seven years and eight months, turned out to be the longest administration in Japan’s constitutional history. What factors contributed to its remarkable longevity? What accomplishments and enduring legacies did this administration achieve during its ...
Migration, Aging and Japan's Sustainable Society
1st Edition
Edited
By Igor Saveliev, Natalie-Anne Hall
May 09, 2025
This book analyzes the relationship between migration and social sustainability in Japan and examines the transformation of its foreign-national and ethnic minority population over the past thirty years while critically assessing Japan’s immigration and integration policies and their domestic and ...
Civil Defense in Japan: Issues and Challenges
1st Edition
Edited
By Yasuhiro Takeda, Jun Ito, Yusuke Kawashima
May 06, 2025
In 2004, Japan instituted a system to protect citizens against military attacks and terrorism for the first time after World War II. Faced with the Tokyo subway attack (1995), the 9/11 terrorist attacks (2001), and the changing security environment in East Asia, the Japanese government was forced ...
Lay Zen in Contemporary Japan: Tradition, Interpretation, and Invention
1st Edition
By Erez Joskovich
May 06, 2025
This book explores the emergence and growth of Zen as a non-monastic spiritual practice in modern Japan. Focusing on several prominent lay Zen associations, most notably Ningen Zen, it explores different aspects of lay Zen as a lived religion, such as organization, ideology, and ritual. Through a ...
Mobile Japanese Migrants to the Pacific West and East: Self-searching, Work, and Identification
1st Edition
By Etsuko Kato
May 06, 2025
This book explores “self-searching migrants,” a new group of indefinitely globally mobile people whose purpose of overseas stay is the search of true self and the work they really want to do, using Japanese trans-Pacific sojourners as the case study. Utilizing testimonies collected from interviews ...
Immediacy in Contemporary Japanese Literature and Popular Culture: The Supremacy of the Present
1st Edition
By Filippo Cervelli
March 24, 2025
This book analyzes the theme of immediacy and the supremacy of the present in contemporary Japanese fiction. Examining immediacy in literary works by a diverse body of authors and works in popular culture released during the major social and economic changes of 1995 and the triple disaster of March...
Challenging Nuclear Pacifism in Japan: Hiroshima's Anti-nuclear Social Movements
1st Edition
By Masae Yuasa
January 30, 2025
Is Japan abandoning its pacifism? The Japanese government has claimed it is doubling its defense spending and has announced a plan to equip itself with the capability to “counterattack” enemy bases overseas, a departure from the nation’s postwar consensus. Shedding new light on Japan’s pacifism and...
The Crisis in Pro Baseball and Japan’s Lost Decade: The Curious Resilience of Heisei Japan
1st Edition
By Paul Dunscomb
January 30, 2025
This book examines Japan’s Heisei era through the lens of the crisis in Japanese professional baseball of 2004, challenging the narrative of decline that dominates the discourse on the period. The story of this crisis reveals much about the Japanese psyche during the “Lost Decade,” about the nature...
The Origin of Japan’s Protectionist Agricultural Policy: Agricultural Administration in Modern Japan
1st Edition
By Hironori Sasada
January 30, 2025
This book explores the origins of Japan’s protectionist agricultural policies through an in-depth historical analysis of Japanese agricultural policies between the Meiji period and the end of WWII. It offers a constructivist account for the rise of protectionism, examining the policies of prewar ...