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.
Japan, Russia and their Territorial Dispute: The Northern Delusion
1st Edition
By James D. J. Brown
May 24, 2017
The territorial dispute between Japan and Russia over four islands off the northeast coast of Hokkaidō has been an enduring obstacle to closer relations between the two powers and therefore an important determinant of geopolitics in North-East Asia. Having emerged at the end of World War II, this ...
Visions of Precarity in Japanese Popular Culture and Literature
1st Edition
Edited
By Kristina Iwata-Weickgenannt, Roman Rosenbaum
May 24, 2017
Recent natural as well as man-made cataclysmic events have dramatically changed the status quo of contemporary Japanese society, and following the Asia-Pacific war’s never-ending ‘postwar’ period, Japan has been dramatically forced into a zeitgeist of saigo or ‘post-disaster.’ This radically new ...
Internationalising Japan: Discourse and Practice
1st Edition
Edited
By Jeremy Breaden, Stacey Steele, Carolyn Stevens
May 10, 2017
In the twenty-first century, the concept of internationalisation remains a crucial tool for understanding the dynamics of globalising processes. It draws attention to the dimensions of conscious action in inter- and trans-national phenomena, connecting globalisation with individuals’ experience of ...
Heritage Conservation and Japan's Cultural Diplomacy: Heritage, National Identity and National Interest
1st Edition
By Natsuko Akagawa
December 20, 2016
Japan’s heritage conservation policy and practice, as deployed through its foreign aid programs, has become one of the main means through which post-World War II Japan has sought to mark its presence in the international arena, both globally and regionally. Heritage conservation has been intimately...
Religion and Psychotherapy in Modern Japan
1st Edition
Edited
By Christopher Harding, Iwata Fumiaki, Yoshinaga Shin’ichi
December 20, 2016
Since the late nineteenth century, religious ideas and practices in Japan have become increasingly intertwined with those associated with mental health and healing. This relationship developed against the backdrop of a far broader, and deeply consequential meeting: between Japan’s long-standing, ...
Superhuman Japan: Knowledge, Nation and Culture in US-Japan Relations
1st Edition
By Marie Thorsten
December 20, 2016
This book examines the imaginative narratives that shaped the attitudes of Americans (and others) toward Japan. Focusing on cultural aspects of economic nationalism and US-Japan relations during the trade war Marie Thorsten uses examples from public discourse, film, documentaries, novels, acts of ...
Examining Japan's Lost Decades
1st Edition
Edited
By Yoichi Funabashi, Barak Kushner
December 08, 2016
This book examines five features of Japan’s ‘Lost Decades’: the speed of the economic decline in Japan compared to Japan’s earlier global prowess; a rapidly declining population; considerable political instability and failed reform attempts; shifting balances of power in the region and changing ...
Career Women in Contemporary Japan: Pursuing Identities, Fashioning Lives
1st Edition
By Anne Stefanie Aronsson
November 10, 2016
Since Japan’s economic recession began in the 1990s, the female workforce has experienced revolutionary changes as greater numbers of women have sought to establish careers. Employment trends indicate that increasingly white-collar professional women are succeeding in breaking through the "glass ...
Mental Health Care in Japan
1st Edition
Edited
By Ruth Taplin, Sandra J. Lawman
July 27, 2016
Mental health, including widespread depression, a high suicide rate and institutionalisation, is a major problem in Japan. At the same time, the mental health care system in Japan has historically been more restrictive than elsewhere in the world. This book looks at the challenges of mental health ...
Japanese Femininities
1st Edition
By Justin Charlebois
May 04, 2016
The corporate salaryman and professional housewife stand as hegemonic archetypes of masculinity and femininity in Japan. However, these rigid gender roles are being challenged by women who are seeking to move beyond the strictly defined confines of their traditional roles as caregivers and ...
Diplomacy in Japan-EU Relations: From the Cold War to the Post-Bipolar Era
1st Edition
By Oliviero Frattolillo
March 03, 2016
Since the 1950s, Japan-Europe relations have been characterised by a mutual coldness in terms of diplomatic dialogue, punctuated by a number of trade disputes. This book analyses the development of the political and diplomatic relationship between Japan and Europe, and shows that – especially ...
Sound, Space and Sociality in Modern Japan
1st Edition
Edited
By Joseph D. Hankins, Carolyn Stevens
January 20, 2016
This book argues that sound – as it is created, transmitted, and perceived – plays a key role in the constitution of space and community in contemporary Japan. The book examines how sonic practices reflect politics, aesthetics, and ethics, with transformative effects on human relations. From ...