New Books from Japan
In the “New Books From Japan” series, the presenter will introduce their book in Japanese, and the discussant will provide comments in English. Participants may speak in either Japanese or English during the Q&A and discussion.
“New Books From Japan” シリーズでは、発表者は日本語で発表し、討論者は英語で討論いたします。参加者は日本語‧英語どちらでも自由にお使いください。同時通訳はありません。
Organizing Committee / 担当者
SAYAKA CHATANI, National University of Singapore (Chair)
HIRO FUJIMOTO, Heidelberg University
MAHO IKEDA, Tokyo Metropolitan University
TADASHI ISHIKAWA, University of Central Florida
2024-2025 Events
Friday, May 31 2024 | 9:00-10:30 PM JST | 8:00-9:30 AM EDT | 1:00-2:30 PM BST
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New Books from Japan #6:
Women in Asia under the Japanese Empire
大日本帝国下のアジアの女性たち
Presenter: 蔭木 達也 (Tatsuya Kageki, Keio University)
Discussant: Marnie Anderson (Smith College)
Contributors to this book provide an Asian women’s history from the perspective of gender analysis, assessing Japanese imperial policy and propaganda in its colonies and occupied territories and particularly its impact on women. Tackling topics including media, travel, migration, literature, and the perceptions of the empire by the colonized, the authors present an eclectic history, unified by the perspective of gender studies and the spatial and political lens of the Japanese Empire. They look at the lives of women in, Taiwan, Korea, Manchuria, Mainland China, Micronesia, and Okinawa, among others. These women were wives, mothers, writers, migrants, intellectuals and activists, and thus had a very broad range of views and experiences of Imperial Japan. Where women have tended in the past to be studied as objects of the imperial system, the contributors to this book study them as the subject of history, while also providing an outside-in perspective on the Japanese Empire by other Asians.
本書は、植民地と占領地における日本帝国の政策とプロパガンダ、特に女性への影響を評価し、ジェンダー分析の視点からアジアの女性史を提示する。メディア、旅行、移住、文学、被植民者による帝国に対する認識などのトピックを扱いながら、著者はジェンダー研究の視点と日本帝国の空間的・政治的レンズによって統一された折衷的な歴史を提示する。寄稿者たちは、台湾、朝鮮、満州、中国本土、ミクロネシア、沖縄などの女性の生き方を見ている。これらの女性たちは、妻であり、母であり、作家であり、移住者であり、知識人であり、活動家であったため、大日本帝国に対する非常に幅広い見方と経験を持っていた。これまで女性は帝国システムの対象として研究される傾向にあったが、本書の寄稿者たちは彼女たちを歴史の主体として研究し、同時に他のアジア人による大日本帝国へのアウトサイド・インな視点も提供している。
Friday, June 21, 2024 | 9:00-10:30 PM JST | 8:00-9:30 AM EDT | 1:00-2:30 PM BST
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New Books from Japan #7:
Destruction and Renewal at the Ise Shrines
Presenter: Jordan Sand (Georgetown University)
Discussant: 高木博志 (Hiroshi Takagi, Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University)
Ise Grand Shrine has often drawn praise in recent years for the elegant simplicity of its buildings, but in fact was a much more extravagant monument in earlier eras, and the austere reenshrinement ceremonies we see today are an invention of the modern period. Spanning an unprecedented timeframe from the ancient Yamato period to the present day, this wide-ranging historical study reconsiders the fundamental nature of the reenshrinement and reconstruction ceremonies of the Ise Shrine(s) in the context of Japan's shifting political and material cultures.
※Discussion will also include Hiroshi Takagi's Modern Imperial System and Traditional Culture (Iwanami Shoten, 2024).
伊勢神宮は、近年では建物の簡素さを讃えられることも多いが、その実は古代より贅を尽くした神廟であり、また、今見る厳かな遷宮のあり方は実は近代の産物でもあった。ヤマト政権から現代に至るまで、伊勢神宮の式年造替と遷宮の本質を、文化をめぐる政治的な文脈でとらえなおした、類を見ない気鋭の歴史的考察。
※当日の議論は、高木博志『近代天皇制と伝統文化：その再構築と創造』（岩波書店、2024年）を含みます。
Friday, January 17, 2025 | 7:00-8:30 AM ET | 9:00-10:30 PM JST
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New Books from Japan #8:
出版帝国の戦争：不逞なものたちの文化史
The Publishing Empire at War: A Cultural History of Defiance
Presenter: 高榮蘭 (Ko Youngran, Nihon University)
Discussant: Nayoung Aimee Kwon (Duke University)
The publishing industry of Imperial Japan actively sought to include the peoples of the colonies as readers, regardless of their legal status. For Koreans, Japanese was a language of oppression, but also a language for learning about modes of resistance, and a language for entertainment. This book examines a variety of banned works to understand what kind of ideas and cultures of resistance were fostered across the Japanese empire in magazines such as "Senki" and "King," and via the writings of Marx, Lenin, Kaneko Fumiko, Hino Ashihei, Hayashi Fumiko, and others.帝国日本の出版市場は合法／非合法を問わず、植民地の人々を積極的に読者として包摂しようとした。朝鮮人にとって日本語は抑圧する言語であり、抵抗の思想を学ぶための言語であり、娯楽のための言語でもあった。『戦旗』や『キング』、マルクスやレーニン、金子文子や火野葦平、林芙美子らの思考や文学が、発禁本とともに帝国の支配圏でいかなる思想や文化を醸成したのか、多彩な作品から読み解く。
Tuesday, July 1, 2025 | 7:00-8:30 AM ET | 8:00-9:30 PM JST
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New Books from Japan #9:
朝鮮映画の時代: 帝国日本が創造した植民地表象
The Age of Korean Cinema: Colonial Representations Created by Imperial Japan
Presenter: 梁仁實 (Yang Insil, Iwate University)
Discussant: Jonathan Glade (University of Melbourne)
In Imperial Japan, many filmmakers, cinema works, and information traversed across the empire. Korean films were screened and “Chosen mono” was produced in the "inner territories." Who watched these Korean films and Korean productions, and how were they perceived? As the war intensified, Korean dialogue was replaced by Japanese, and “respectable imperial subjects” began to appear on the screen. How did the thoughts of directors, actors, cinema operators, and audiences overlap and differ between Koreans and Japanese?
帝国日本では多くの映画人や作品、情報が往来し、内地でも朝鮮映画が上映され「朝鮮物」が作られた。こうした朝鮮映画や朝鮮物は誰に観られ、いかに考えられていたのか。戦時色が強まるにつれ、セリフは日本語に、スクリーンには「立派な皇国臣民」が登場するようになる。監督や俳優などの製作者、映画館経営者、観客の思いは、朝鮮人と日本人でいかに重なり、異なったのか。
Tuesday, October 14, 2025 | 8:00-9:30 PM ET
Wednesday, October 15, 2025 | 9:00-10:30 AM JST
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New Books from Japan #10:
帝国と観光―「満洲」ツーリズムの近代
Empire and Tourism: Modern Japanese Tourism in Manchuria
Presenter: 高媛 (Ko En/Gao Yuan, Komazawa University))
Discussants: Ken Ruoff (Portland State University) and 蘭信三 (Araragi Shinzo, Sophia University)
Moderator: Tadashi Ishikawa (University of Central Florida)
Empire and Tourism explores the history of tourism in Manchuria over approximately a century, from 1906 to the mid-2000s. This study examines how desires, memories, and political intentions were embedded beneath the glamorous surfaces of tourism. Focusing on tourism as a modern practice, it investigates how imperial narratives were constructed in Manchuria and how nostalgia for a “lost empire” was fostered after the collapse of Manchukuo. By analyzing the complex interplay between individuals and the state—alongside intermediaries such as the South Manchuria Railway Company (Mantetsu), the Japan Tourist Bureau (JTB), and the zaiman kenjinkai (prefectural hometown associations of Japanese settlers in Manchuria)—the book sheds light on the layered and often contradictory forces that shaped imperial tourism in the region.
『帝国と観光――「満洲」ツーリズムの近代』は、1906年から2000年代半ばにかけて、約一世紀にわたる満洲観光の歴史をたどりながら、その華やかな表層の背後にひそむ欲望、記憶、そして政治的意図を読み解こうとする試みである。観光という近代的営為を通じて、満洲において「帝国の物語」はいかに構築され、また満洲国崩壊後に「失われた帝国」への郷愁はいかに醸成されたのかを問い直す。本書は、個人と国家、さらにそのあいだに介在する南満洲鉄道株式会社（満鉄）、JTB、在満県人会といった多様な主体の思惑が交錯する複雑な構造に光をあて、満洲観光をめぐる重層的でときに矛盾する力学を明らかにする。
Thursday, November 5, 2025 | 7:00-8:30 AM ET | 9:00-10:30 PM JST
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New Books from Japan #11:
『コナコーヒーのグローバル・ヒストリーー太平洋空間の重層的移動史』
A Global History of Kona Coffee: Multilayered Migrations in the Pacific Region
Presenter: 飯島真里子 (Iijima Mariko, Sophia University)
Discussant: Nadin Heé (Leipzig University)
Moderator: Tadashi Ishikawa (University of Central Florida)
This book traces the global history of coffee from Kona, Hawai‘i, a region renowned for its high-quality coffee in the world. The nearly 200-year history of coffee cultivation in Kona has been shaped by the complex interplay of human, material, and ideological “movements” on a global scale. These include the colonialism of the British, American, and Japanese empires; labor migration from Asia and Latin America; and the spread of the concept of specialty coffee. The dynamic and multilayered movements of people, goods, and ideas across time, space, and context reveal Kona’s pivotal role as a nexus of migrations within the Pacific region. Kona establishes a connection between Japan, Europe, the United States, and the subtropical regions of Asia, encompassing the South Pacific Islands and Taiwan and Latin America. By incorporating the temporal dimension of two centuries, the spatial dimension of the Pacific region, and the migratory dimension of transnational movement, this book unveils hidden global narratives of “Kona” coffee.