Political Sociology, Japanese Studies, International Relations, Sociology of Education, Higher Education, and 8 more

More Info: Sample chapters available under heading, "Chapters"

Political Economy, Cold War, International Political Economy, History of US-Japan Relations, Japanese politics, and 1 more

More Info: A shorter version of this book is available under "papers."

Publication Date: 1999

In Gill Steel, ed., Power in Contemporary Japan. New York: Palgrave, 2016.

Social Theory, International Relations, Media and Cultural Studies, Japanese Politics (Political Science), Aesthetics and Politics, and 2 more

This is the published version in Japanese.

Gender Studies, International Relations, Media and Cultural Studies, Political Theory, Genealogy, and 4 more

Satrapi's prose “Introduction” to _Persepolis_ recalls the magnificent history of the Persian Empire, the ancestor of contemporary Iran. The prose suggests a conventional “genealogy” as offering a grounding impulse to... more abstractSatrapi's prose “Introduction” to _Persepolis_ recalls the magnificent history of the Persian Empire, the ancestor of contemporary Iran. The prose suggests a conventional “genealogy” as offering a grounding impulse to forge (an alternative) concreteness out of inconstancy. But while one kind of inquiry secures the author’s desire for familiarity and social belonging amid an unstable world, another (Foucaultian) genealogical posturing acknowledges the chaos and precariousness of nations and individuals vacillating between love and hate, belonging and exile. This paper looks at Satrapi's three graphic novels as well as her post-911 New York Times commentaries.

Cultural Studies, Political Sociology, International Relations Theory, Genealogy, Popular Culture, and 5 more

Edward Said's praise of comics journalist Joe Sacco as a kind of “Marlow” (from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness) is an analogy that reminds us of the contextualization of current affairs graphic novels in other medi... more abstractEdward Said's praise of comics journalist Joe Sacco as a kind of “Marlow” (from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness) is an analogy that reminds us of the contextualization of current affairs graphic novels in other media. While scholars and laypeople alike have praised serious comics and animated works for their capacity to get readers interested in “the horror, the horror” (iconic words of Heart of Darkness), the failure of such works to “translate” across diverse reading publics attests to the imperfections of conveying traumatic stories with drawings and words. Said's own earlier writing on Heart of Darkness helps to qualify his appraisal of Marlow-like narrations of the forgotten peoples of the world. In Culture and Imperialism (1993), Said explains that author Conrad (through Marlow) ingeniously accomplishes the tragic exposition of European imperialism in “two visions.” First, Conrad acknowledges that his readers (Marlow's “listeners”) are located “in a particular time and in a specific place,” and second, Conrad permits Marlow to use “arabesque meditations” of ideas, and alternating blunt and evasive language, to capture the unrelenting journey of European imperial mastery (Said 1993:23).

Political Sociology, International Relations, Visual Studies, Visual Culture, Critical Pedagogy, and 8 more

Reconciliation, Akira Kurosawa, War Film, Pearl Harbor, Kinji Fukasaku, and 1 more

Publication Name: Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus

Terrorism, Political Science, Giorgio Agamben, Japanese Film, Neoliberalism, and 9 more

Popular Culture, Visual Culture, Critical Pedagogy, Torture, Documentary Film, and 4 more

Silk Road Studies, Asia Pacific Region, Memory Studies, and Japan

International Relations, History and Memory, History of US-Japan Relations, Reconciliation, Pearl Harbor, and 1 more

This is a more compact version of our book, looking at the wider import of Joseph Dodge in Cold War geopolitics.

Political Sociology, International Relations, Political Economy, US/Allied occupation of Japan, and Postwar US-Japanese relations

In July 2016, the UK government released a 2.6 million-word multi-volume document, the Chilcot Report (formally the “Iraq Inquiry” chaired by Sir John Chilcot), assessing the British government’s role in the 2003 inte... more abstractIn July 2016, the UK government released a 2.6 million-word multi-volume document, the Chilcot Report (formally the “Iraq Inquiry” chaired by Sir John Chilcot), assessing the British government’s role in the 2003 intervention in Iraq. What does this document, which took seven years to complete, have to do with Japan? Japan’s role in the multi-nation “coalition of the willing” supporting the intervention was minimal compared to that of other countries, but pivotal on the domestic front because of Japan’s Constitutional prohibition against the use of force to solve military conflicts. As Japan proceeds with its newly legislated Constitutional reinterpretation allowing offensive military engagement for collective self-defense, its role in the largely discredited American and British-led “war on terror” has regained attention. This presentation will look at Japan’s “soft” humanitarian role in its controversial participation in the Iraq War according to the findings of the Chilcot Report. It will also consider citizens’ reactions to the report and broadly discuss Japan’s participation in the war on terror (2004-2009) in light of its new security status.

Japanese Studies, International Relations, and Iraq War

Introduction to Superhuman Japan (Routledge, 2012)

Political Sociology, Japanese Studies, International Relations, Education, Higher Education, and 4 more

With the postwar rise of Japan, Americans reacted to bilateral knowledge and trade skirmishes by creating a symbolic economic nationalism. One example in popular culture is Michael Crichton’s, Rising Sun (1992), which... more abstractWith the postwar rise of Japan, Americans reacted to bilateral knowledge and trade skirmishes by creating a symbolic economic nationalism. One example in popular culture is Michael Crichton’s, Rising Sun (1992), which ends in a pseudo-scholarly polemic that Americans should first learn what they need to from Japan and then separate themselves from that nation. Around the time of Rising Sun’s publication, many politicians and popular writers were already aware that this mimicry of World War II nationalism, treating knowledge like a weapon of the enemy, could not survive its own contradictions. The film version of Rising Sun (dir. Philip Kaufman, 1993) with its more ambiguous ending better exemplifies the contradictory neoliberal impulses of globalization.

Political Sociology, Japanese Studies, American Studies, International Relations, Political Economy, and 8 more

The Soviet Sputnik surprise to Americans in 1957 produced not a just a "shock doctrine" (Klein) but also an "awe doctrine.” Following Sputnik, and again, following Japan’s technological and economic advancement during... more abstractThe Soviet Sputnik surprise to Americans in 1957 produced not a just a "shock doctrine" (Klein) but also an "awe doctrine.” Following Sputnik, and again, following Japan’s technological and economic advancement during the latter part of the Cold War, American policymakers exploited perceived "awe" of the other and fear of their nation’s own second place to advance national technological and educational achievement. The Sputnik crisis and the “Japanese miracle” offer many points of comparison, but did those moments truly kick-start an educational renaissance, or did their management by bureaucrats simply lead to further anti-human and repressive, test-taking-intensive management of life?

Future Studies, Political Sociology, Japanese Studies, International Relations, Educational Administration, and 9 more

This chapter shows the development of the concept of kyoiku mama (education mothers) since the 1970s, with some comparisons to "tiger moms."

Cultural Studies, Political Sociology, Japanese Studies, Gender Studies, Media Studies, and 9 more

This is a list of classes I teach at Doshisha University.

Japanese Studies, International Relations, and Media and Cultural Studies

These is the full text of my comments to TIME on January 23, 2015.

Japanese Studies, International Relations, and Japan

This is a commentary-type essay written shortly after the Senkaku conflict began to challenge the impression that university students aren't interested in international relations.

International Relations, Japanese higher education, and Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands Conflict