The Japan Society Review

The last issue of The Japan Society Review in 2019 includes reviews of five books which, in one way or another, explore the interactions and encounters of Japan and Japanese culture with the rest of the world. In Quaint, Exquisite: Victorian Aesthetics and the Idea of Japan Grace E. Lavery explores how Japan captured the Victorian imagination [...]

For the October issue of The Japan Society Review we have selected a mixture of books that illuminate different aspects of modern Japan. The opening review focuses on the catalogue of the exhibition Conflicts of Interest: Art and War in Modern Japan held at the Saint Louis Art Museum, October 2016 to January 2017.

On 1 May 2019, Prince Naruhito ascended the throne as the 126th Emperor of Japan beginning the Reiwa era. The first Japanese emperor who studied outside Japan, he attended University of Oxford between 1983 and 1985 (his memoirs of those years were translated into English by Sir Hugh Cortazzi as The Thames and I (reprinted 2019)).

Our June issue covers the impressive Citi exhibition Manga マンガ at the British Museum, along with The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories, two novels by Japanese women writers Kanai Mieko and Nakajima Kyoko and finally, the academic study Electrified Voices: How the Telephone, Phonograph, and Radio Shaped Modern Japan, 1868-1945.

This issue of The Japan Society Review opens with a review of the catalogue of an exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum in New York in recognition of the one thousandth anniversary of the publication of The Tale of Genji. Both the catalogue and the exhibition illuminates the importance of Genji in Japanese visual culture.

Welcome to the first issue of The Japan Society Review in 2019. Thanks to our team of dedicated reviewers, we again hope to bring you details of the latest and most interesting publications, films and events related to Japan. As in previous issues, we will maintain a balance between academic, non-fiction publications and works of popular culture.

Our last issue of 2018 focuses on international relations, Japanese linguistics, art and pop culture. We also present a review of an unusual travel book and finish with a look at the award-winning movie Shoplifters.

In this issue, the Review concentrates on Japanese literature, cinema and food aiming to also cover the wide-ranging interests of our readers.

This issue of The Japan Society Review is dedicated to the memory of Sir Hugh Cortazzi, former British Ambassador to Japan (1980-1984) and Chairman of the Japan Society (1985-1995), who died on Tuesday 14 August 2018, at the age of 94. Sir Hugh was the most distinguished Japanese specialist of his generation in the Foreign Office, and his association with the Society began long before he became Chairman.

In the June issue of The Japan Society Review we would like to offer you five extra choices for your summer reading, a selection of books dealing with different topics and formats, from robotics to gardens, from fiction to historical essays.