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Accuracy and Dignity: Staging Madama Butterfly in Occupied Japan Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2024-02-26 Mizuki Masuyama
Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly has long been viewed in Japan and abroad as demeaning Japan, portraying Japanese women as helpless victims of a cruel society, easily exploited by Japanese and Amer...
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Reimagining Extinction in Australia and Japan: ‘Voices’ of the Tasmanian Tiger and Hokkaido Wolf Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2024-02-12 Shoko Yoneyama, Philip Weinstein
This is a comparative, cross-cultural, and multi-disciplinary study of two extinct animals, the Tasmanian tiger in Australia and the Hokkaido wolf in Japan, and their ongoing cultural ‘presence’. T...
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An Imagined Shrinking Community: Japanese Nationalism and The Chronology of the Future Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2024-01-09 Chigusa Yamaura
How should we understand the relationship between nationalism and discourses of national decline, and more specifically the discourses of a shrinking nation? Driven by this question, this article h...
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Viewing Intentional Teaching Gestures: The Impact on Learners’ Japanese Output Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-12-22 Naomi Wilks-Smith
Intentional Teaching Gestures are gestures that have been created as a pedagogical tool for second language teaching and learning and are used in many Japanese programs. Despite their widespread us...
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Introduction to Special Issue: Teaching and Researching Japan Through the Pandemic and Beyond Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-12-12 Jenny Hall, Sally McLaren
This special issue of Japanese Studies provides a snapshot of the teaching and researching of Japan through the initial years of the pandemic. It records experiences and reflections by scholars of ...
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Reading Medieval Ruins: Urban Life and Destruction in Sixteenth-Century Japan Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-12-12 John Elijah Bender
Published in Japanese Studies (Vol. 43, No. 3, 2023)
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Fieldwork from Home?: COVID-19 and the Patchwork Future of Japan-Based Fieldwork Pedagogies Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-12-12 Anna Vainio, Mark Pendleton
During the COVID-19 pandemic, entry to Japan was heavily restricted causing challenges to research and study opportunities. This extended exclusion from Japan has since emphasised questions about t...
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Pedagogical Pleasures and Perils of Teaching During the Pandemic: Japanese History and YouTube Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-12-12 Sally McLaren
In this article, I focus on the role of YouTube as a pedagogical tool and its associated media literacy issues. In the courses I have taught since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, I have include...
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Finality, Finance, and Entanglement in Kawabata Yasunari’s Senbazuru (Thousand Cranes) and Its Sequels Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-12-12 Scott Mehl
Kawabata Yasunari’s (1899–1972) narrative about the tea ceremony has had a complicated reception, largely because of two factors: its early publication history; and the theft, in early 1954, of the...
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Response to Chizuko T. Allen’s Review of Seeds of Control: Japan’s Empire of Forestry in Colonial Korea Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-11-27 Tessa Morris-Suzuki
Published in Japanese Studies (Vol. 43, No. 3, 2023)
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The Location of Migrants’ Political Culture: A Large-Scale Survey-Based Study of the Japanese Community in Contemporary Australia Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-11-23 Takeshi Hamano, Shinsuke Funaki, Ruth Phillips
Drawing on data from a large-scale sample survey conducted in 2016 within the contemporary ethnic Japanese migrant community in Sydney, Australia, this article focuses on demographics and the polit...
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Seeing Through the In/Visible: Akagi Shūji and the Limits of ‘Environmental Restoration’ Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-08-12 Franz Prichard
Abstract This essay will explore the material and affective dimensions of the ongoing disaster caused by TEPCO’s Fukushima Dai’ichi reactor meltdowns from the perspective of Akagi Shūji’s photography. Mobilizing Twitter to record the uncanny traces of Fukushima city’s decontamination and recovery efforts, Akagi’s photography affords a renewed consideration of the lived struggles and unsettled realities
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Religion, Power, and the Rise of Shinto in Early Modern Japan Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-08-08 Yijiang Zhong
Published in Japanese Studies (Vol. 43, No. 2, 2023)
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Indeterminate Crises, a Nuclear Continuum: Abe Kōbō’s The Ark Sakura and the Structures of Technological Discourse in the Nuclear Age Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-07-31 Bernard Shee
Abstract Be it the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the escalations of the Cold War, or the triple disaster at Fukushima, the problem of representing disaster remains an exigent yet precarious one. Published amid rising global tensions, Abe Kōbō’s The Ark Sakura (Abe, 1984) questions the limits of representation within this perplexing discursive landscape. In this article, I will examine the text’s
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Introduction to Special Issue: The Limits of Nuclear Discourse Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-07-27 Rachel DiNitto
Abstract The articles in this special issue explore the limits of nuclear representation and discourse via analyses of Japanese literature, photographs, animated television shows, and social media posts. Through these media, the authors delve into the subjectivity of disaster victims – children, youth, women, national subjects, foreigners, humans, and animals – and cross the temporal networks connecting
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Popular Music in Japan: Transformation Inspired by the West Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-07-27 Alison Tokita
Published in Japanese Studies (Vol. 43, No. 2, 2023)
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Outsiders in Disasters: Racism, Rumours, and Fiction in Post-3.11 Japan Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-07-12 Alex Bates
Abstract The 3.11 triple disasters occurred at a moment of increased anti-immigrant sentiment in Japan exemplified by the activities of the Zaitokukai, a particularly anti-Korean right-wing group. This xenophobic sentiment provided fertile ground for the spread of malicious racialized rumours blaming foreigners for an array of crimes in the aftermath of the disaster. This article considers the mechanisms
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Crisis and Literature in Contemporary Japan: From 3-11 to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Kanehara Hitomi’s Fiction Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-06-08 Anri Yasuda
ABSTRACT It has been observed that ‘3–11’ marked an inflection point in Japanese cultural discourse, after which there prevailed a broad malaise about the social faults and systemic inequities that the natural and nuclear disasters had exposed in their aftermath. Kanehara Hitomi’s novel Motazaru Mono (Those without, 2015) explores this affective shift through her characters’ struggles to contend with
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Selling the Kimono: An Ethnography of Crisis, Creativity and Hope Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-05-31 Jenny Hall
Published in Japanese Studies (Vol. 43, No. 2, 2023)
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Distance and Fieldwork in a Pandemic: How Not ‘Being there’ is Impacting Research on Japan Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-05-21 Jenny Hall
Fieldwork is about ‘being there’ in the field to gather data. But what happens when researchers cannot visit the field? This article explores how Japan scholars have been dealing with the impact of...
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Playful, Sociable, Cute, Quarantined – Interactions with Kawaii Characters in Animal Crossing: New Horizons During COVID-19 Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-05-17 Megan Catherine Rose
The implementation of social isolation policies in response to COVID-19 coincided with Nintendo’s video game Animal Crossing: New Horizons (also known as atsumare dōbutsu no mori) gaining popularit...
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The end of Pax Americana: the loss of empire and hikikomori nationalism Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-05-09 Steven Jackson
Published in Japanese Studies (Vol. 43, No. 2, 2023)
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Review of Education and Social Justice in Japan Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-03-28 John P. Miller
Published in Japanese Studies (Vol. 43, No. 1, 2023)
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Dialogic Positioning on Pro-Whaling Stance: A Case Study of Reported Speech in Japanese Whaling News Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-03-20 Masaki Shibata
ABSTRACT Hard news is often assumed to be ‘objective’ and ‘factual’, with little or no trace of a ‘subjective’ authorial point of view. However, what is often forgotten is that journalists still choose what information to divulge, and how to communicate that information. This article explores how whaling news is presented in Japanese hard news reports, examining the types of ‘voices’ quoted and how
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Haruki Murakami and His Early Work: The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Running Artist Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-03-20 Erik R. Lofgren
Published in Japanese Studies (Vol. 43, No. 1, 2023)
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Otaku and the Struggle for Imagination in Japan Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-03-17 Holger Briel
Published in Japanese Studies (Vol. 43, No. 1, 2023)
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Resurrecting Nagasaki: Reconstruction and the Formation of Atomic Narratives Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-03-13 Rumi Sakamoto
Published in Japanese Studies (Vol. 43, No. 1, 2023)
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Ezra Pound’s Japan Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-03-13 Ce Rosenow
Published in Japanese Studies (Vol. 43, No. 1, 2023)
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A Celebrity’s Fifteen-Year Reign and Reinvention of Kamigata Rakugo Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-03-08 M.W. Shores
Abstract From 2004 to 2017, Kamigata Rakugo Kyōkai (KRK) – the professional comic storytelling guild for the Osaka area – issued the magazine Nna aho na (That’s ridiculous). Concurrent with the tenure of one of the art’s most recognisable and progressive artists, Katsura Bunshi VI (b. 1943), as KRK chairperson, the magazine hailed Kamigata rakugo’s ‘new era’. It heralded the first dedicated rakugo
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Policy Change in the Shadow of the Paralympics: Disability Activism and Accessibility Reforms in Japan Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-03-05 Celeste L. Arrington, Mark R. Bookman
Abstract The Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games provided Japanese stakeholders opportunities to pressure policymakers to pass reforms, including measures to improve accessibility. However, the Games alone are not sufficient to explain the scope and consequences of recent accessibility reforms. We argue that researchers must also consider the impact of historical contingencies such as decades of
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Is Post-Fukushima Reform Making Japan Safer? From Shared Responsibility to Collective Accountability Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-03-01 Yasuo Takao
Abstract Ten years after the Fukushima disaster, the nuclear safety regulation system in Japan has gradually moved from the exclusionary process of policy making, based on hierarchically organized policy, to a decentralized and open process of policy making whose competence is divided beyond the pre-given political actors. Yet policy making and implementation need to bring together multiple stakeholders
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Japan’s Aging Peace: Pacifism and Militarism in the Twenty-First Century Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2023-02-16 Hugo Dobson
Published in Japanese Studies (Vol. 43, No. 1, 2023)
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Introduction to Special Issue on Youth and Democracy in Post-War Japanese Culture Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2022-11-27 Tomoko Aoyama, Barbara Hartley
Published in Japanese Studies (Vol. 42, No. 3, 2022)
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Patriarchal Traces in Japanese Girls’ Fiction: Beyond the Loss of the Father to Patriarchal Mothers and Resistant Daughters Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2022-11-15 Yoriko Kume, Helen Kilpatrick
Abstract As World War II ended and a new democratic society was beginning in Japan, significant changes were made to the patriarchal system, changes such as the recognition of women’s rights and the dismantling of the Japanese family system which in turn affected youth culture. Against this backdrop, particularly within the genre of shōjo shōsetsu (girls’ fiction), new representations of the father
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Transpacific Convergences: Race, Migration, and Japanese American Film Culture before World War II Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2022-10-31 Daisuke Miyao
Published in Japanese Studies (Ahead of Print, 2022)
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Death, Dreams and Democracy: A Shōjo-Ecofeminist Lens on Awa Naoko’s Post-War Fiction Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2022-11-01 Helen Kilpatrick
Abstract Awa Naoko’s (1943–1993) folkloric fantasy for young people arose during a time of rapid post-war industrial and economic development in Japan. The pollution arising from this development generated an awareness of environmental degradation at the same time as there was a growing consciousness of the failed promises of gender equality. While Awa’s fantasies represent an instinctively eco-conscious
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Disrupting the Discourse of War: Nakai Hideo’s Youthful Template for a Free and Democratic Post-War Japan Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2022-10-30 Barbara Hartley
Abstract This article examines notions of democracy in the writing of post-war literary identity, Nakai Hideo (1922–1993). Although Nakai is known as a fantasy novelist, tanka poet/editor and essayist, the focus text here is Kanata yori (From afar), a diary produced during the final stages of the war. Entries were largely written while the future literary identity worked as a mobilised student in the
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Bridging Australia and Japan Volume 2: The Writings of David Sissons, Historian and Political Scientist Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2022-10-27 Alan Rix
Published in Japanese Studies (Vol. 42, No. 3, 2022)
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Seeds of Control: Japan’s Empire of Forestry in Colonial Korea Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2022-10-27 Chizuko T. Allen
Published in Japanese Studies (Vol. 42, No. 3, 2022)
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Re-Imagining Shakespeare in Contemporary Japan: A Selection of Japanese Theatrical Adaptations of Shakespeare Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2022-10-27 Barbara E. Thornbury
Published in Japanese Studies (Vol. 42, No. 3, 2022)
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In the Ruins of the Japanese Empire: Imperial Violence, State Destruction, and the Reordering of Modern East Asia Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2022-10-21 Bill Sewell
Published in Japanese Studies (Vol. 42, No. 3, 2022)
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Family-Run Universities in Japan: Sources of Inbuilt Resilience in the Face of Demographic Pressure, 1992–2030 Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2022-10-19 Philip G. Altbach
Published in Japanese Studies (Vol. 42, No. 3, 2022)
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From Tears to Laughter: Gender, Humour and Democracy in Ishii Momoko's Non-chan Kumo ni Noru Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2022-10-18 Tomoko Aoyama
Abstract Ishii Momoko (1907–2008) is arguably the most important and influential figure in Japanese children’s literature, not only as a prolific and award-winning writer and translator, but also as an editor of important series, a critic, and a pioneer of the children’s library movement. This article examines the significance of humour in her works, especially her acclaimed novel for children, Non-chan
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Girls (and Boys) Debating Democracy in Aoi sanmyaku Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2022-10-17 Kenko Kawasaki, Laura Emily Clark
Abstract Histories of democracy in modern Japan often position ‘democracy’ itself as an elite, introduced, inorganic facet of post-defeat Japan’s reconstruction by outside influences. However, analysis of discourses and texts prior to this revisionist narrative reveal a much more complex and continuous intellectual history at play. Ishizaka Yōjirō’s (1900–1986) run-away hit Aoi sanmyaku (Blue mountain
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Shōjo Sexuality in Post-War Japan: Parody and Subversion in Kurahashi Yumiko’s Divine Maiden Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2022-10-17 Letizia Guarini
Abstract Love, sex and marriage are recurrent themes in Kurahashi Yumiko’s literature, especially in her early works. In the novel Divine maiden (1965) she approached those topics from a different perspective, through the form of shōjo shōsetsu (girl’s fiction): she even went so far as to define Divine maiden as ‘the last shōjo shōsetsu’. The protagonist of this novel is a young girl, Miki: the story
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The Relationship between Yakyū (Baseball) and Militarism: Baseball Discourse in Japanese Shōnen (Boys’) Culture Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2022-08-12 Takayuki Ōhashi
Abstract This article analyses the popular post-war boys’ baseball manga Kyojin no Hoshi, to highlight how pre-war militaristic values were carried over into post-war Japanese sports. Militarism in pre-war Japan was underpinned by bushidō, a set of beliefs that idealised the values upheld by samurai, and which greatly influenced Japan’s pre-war physical education system. While post-war Japan achieved
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Falling in and Out of Love with Stuff: Affective Affordance and Horizontal Transcendence in Styles of Decluttering in Japan Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2022-08-11 Fabio Gygi
Abstract The last decade has seen the rise of Japanese methods of decluttering, adding everyday stuff to the increasing number of things that the modern subject must manage to gain a sense of wellbeing. This article examines Danshari by Yamashita Hideko and the Konmari method by Kondō Marie. Using the ‘affective affordances’ of objects as an analytic lens, I will argue that paying attention to everyday
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Desire and the Construction of Masculine Identities Among Young Japanese Men with International Experiences Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2022-08-09 Elisabeth (Libby) Ann Morinaga Williams
Abstract This article uses qualitative interview data to analyse how young Japanese men with international experience spoke about (un)desirable masculine identities in relation to their sojourns. Specifically, this study investigates how ideas of desire and akogare (longing for something unattainable) were integral in the construction of ethno-national Japanese heterosexual male identities. By analysing
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Four Years in a Red Coat: The Loveday Internment Camp Diary of Miyakatsu Koike Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2022-08-08 Rowena Ward
Published in Japanese Studies (Vol. 42, No. 2, 2022)
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Ghost in the Well: The Hidden History of Horror Films in Japan Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2022-08-08 Timothy Iles
Published in Japanese Studies (Vol. 42, No. 2, 2022)
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Spirit of Place: Zeami’s Tōru and the Poetic Manifestation of Mugen Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2022-07-19 Daryl Jamieson
Abstract Zeami Motokiyo was one of nō’s most important theorists and practitioners, and mugen nō one of his most sophisticated innovations. Using the play Tōru as a model, this article explores how Zeami’s nō utilised waka theory and Buddhist aesthetics that were current in his time. I will particularly focus on his use of utamakura, a poetic device of intertextual allusion via place names. In the
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International Sports Diplomacy in Action – An Investigation of AUS+RALLY: An Australian Sports Diplomacy Campaign in Japan Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2022-07-04 Alexander. R. Best, Ian Austin
Abstract As exercised by the recent Tokyo 2020 Olympics and 2020 Paralympics, both delayed until 2021 due to COVID-19 conditions, sports diplomacy is shifting, from emergence as a concept, toward empirical legitimacy. Extant literature has allowed scholars to clearly establish the factors constituting sports diplomacy, which has culminated in the sports diplomacy model proposed by Abdi and colleagues
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From Country to Nation: Ethnographic Studies, Kokugaku, and Spirits in Nineteenth-Century Japan Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2022-07-04 W. Puck Brecher
Published in Japanese Studies (Vol. 42, No. 2, 2022)
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Techno-Tradition: A Foray into Technology-Integrated Traditional Japanese Theatre Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2022-06-28 Lim Beng Choo, Julie A. Iezzi
Abstract Traditional Japanese theatre is a broad category that usually refers to noh, kyōgen, kabuki and bunraku. These genres formed from the fourteenth through seventeenth centuries, and are still regularly performed. Despite the many significant roles of technologies in these genres today, their increasing presence in the genres and myriad manifestations are seldom discussed. This article is an
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Japanese Language Learning and Teaching During COVID-19: Challenges and Opportunities Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2022-05-10 Levi Durbidge, Gwyn McClelland
Before COVID-19, language learning was undergoing technology-driven change, including classroom delivery through blended learning and opportunities for autonomous learning through online affordance...
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Dis/Embodying Fieldwork in Japan Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2022-05-06 Erika Alpert
When flights reopened in 2020 between Kazakhstan, where I was based, and Japan, where I do my research, my first thought was, ‘Can I still fit in some fieldwork this summer?’ Fieldwork relies on an...
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Isolation and Solidarity: Doing Japanese Studies at an International College in South Korea during the 2020 COVID-19 Outbreak Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2022-05-03 Tomoko Seto
This article explores challenges and opportunities for Japanese Studies during the COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea. From March 2014 to February 2022, after receiving a US PhD, I taught Japanese hi...
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Japanese Politeness: An Enquiry Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2022-04-10 Amelya Septiana, Nursidah, Fikri Yanda
(2022). Japanese Politeness: An Enquiry. Japanese Studies: Vol. 42, WRITING-RESTRICTED VARIATION IN CONTEMPORARY JAPAN, pp. 103-105.
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Urban migrants in rural Japan: between agency and anomie in a post-growth society Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2022-04-06 David Chiavacci
(2022). Urban migrants in rural Japan: between agency and anomie in a post-growth society. Japanese Studies: Vol. 42, WRITING-RESTRICTED VARIATION IN CONTEMPORARY JAPAN, pp. 105-107.
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Intimate Disconnections: Divorce and the Romance of Independence in Contemporary Japan Japanese Studies Pub Date : 2022-03-30 Lynne Y. Nakano
(2022). Intimate Disconnections: Divorce and the Romance of Independence in Contemporary Japan. Japanese Studies: Vol. 42, WRITING-RESTRICTED VARIATION IN CONTEMPORARY JAPAN, pp. 107-109.