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Ainu
"Some 55 scholars, mostly Japanese but with a considerable number from the US and Europe, write about the ethnicity, theories of origin, history, economies, art, religious beliefs, mythology, and other aspects of the culture of the Ainu, The indigenous people of Japan, now principally found in Hokkaido and smaller far northern islands. Hundreds of photographs and paintings, mostly in excellent quality color, show a wide variety of Ainu people, As well as clothing, jewelry, and various artifacts." – Choice "The most in-depth treatise available on Ainu prehistory, material culture, and ethnohistory." – Library Journal
From the Playground of the Gods
"Bikky Sunazawa's art was unknown in North America and relatively little-known outside Hokkaido, Japan, when the Smithsonian opened its special Ainu exhibition [in 1999]. Conceived to explore the relationship of history, culture, and art of the Ainu people with other North Pacific native groups, the exhibition included a large section of contemporary Ainu sculpture, painting, graphic arts, and textile arts. The largest body of work was sculptures created by Bikky Sunazawa. . . . This is the first English-language book devoted to Bikky's life and the most complete presentation of his principal artworks. . . . [It] is the most comprehensive treatment of the artist who became the pivot point in the development of modern Ainu fine art." --from the Preface by William W. Fitzhugh
Handbook of the Ainu Language
The volume is aimed at preserving invaluable knowledge about Ainu, a language-isolate previously spoken in Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and Kurils, which is now on the verge of extinction. Ainu was not a written language, but it possesses a huge documented stock of oral literature, yet is significantly under-described in terms of grammar. It is the only non-Japonic language of Japan and is typologically different not only from Japanese but also from other Northeast Asian languages. Revolving around but not confined to its head-marking and polysynthetic character, Ainu manifests many typologically interesting phenomena, related in particular to the combinability of various voice markers and noun incor...
Transcultural Japan
Transcultural Japan provides a critical examination of being Other in Japan. Portraying the multiple intersections of race, ethnicity, class, and gender, the book suggests ways in which the transcultural borderlands of Japan reflect globalization in this island nation. The authors show the diversity of Japan from the inside, revealing an extraordinarily complex new society in sharp contrast to the persistent stereotypical images held of a regimented, homogeneous Japan. Unsettling as it may be, there are powerful arguments here for looking at the meanings of globalization in Japan through these diverse communities and individuals. These are not harmonious, utopian communities by any means, as...
To the Ends of Japan
What is Japan? Who are its people? These questions are among those addressed in Bruce Batten's ambitious study of Japan's historical development through the nineteenth century. Traditionally, Japan has been portrayed as a homogenous society formed over millennia in virtual isolation. Social historians and others have begun to question this view, emphasizing diversity and interaction, both within the Japanese archipelago and between Japan and other parts of Eurasia. Until now, however, no book has attempted to resolve these conflicting views in a comprehensive, systematic way. To the Ends of Japan tackles the "big questions" on Japan by focusing on its borders, broadly defined to include hist...
Modern Japanese society / edited by Josef Kreiner, Ulrich Hohwald and Hans Dieter Olschleger.
Is Japanese society essentially different from other modern industrialized societies, or not? This survey work with contributions from the leading scholars in this complicated field, presents a full overview of the most important aspects of Japanese society which may lead the reader to find an answer to these two often-asked questions. Japanese society, defined as those institutions shaping the life of individuals and groups, as well as being responsible for the dynamics of social development, is shown to be as modern as any other industrialized society; definitely distinct, though, are the ways in which institutions are defined and organised as a result of different social and historical roots of the process of modernization.
The Fabric of Indigeneity
The author synthesizes ethnographic field research, museum and archival research, and participation in cultural-revival and rights-based organizing to show how women craft Ainu and indigenous identities through clothwork and how they also fashion lived connections to ancestral values and lifestyles.
Takamure Itsue, Japanese Antiquity, and Matricultural Paradigms that Address the Crisis of Modernity
This book explores Takamure Itsue’s (1894–1964) intellectual odyssey as Japan’s most notable pioneer in the study of women’s history. When she embarked on a series of scholarly projects that investigated marriage patterns and kinship systems in ancient Japan, it was a response to crisis-ridden modernity. Relentless in her quest to dismantle patriarchy, this “woman from the Land of Fire” (a nickname for her birthplace, Kumamoto Prefecture) locked herself away in 1931 and spent the rest of her life conducting research on female-friendly societies with matrilocal arrangements under kinship-based communal systems. While dissecting the patriarchal norms undergirding the capitalist nation-state, she embraced matricultural paradigms that embodied life-sustaining and life-enhancing values through communal childrearing and matrilineal inheritance. Takamure, a visionary thinker, asked big-picture questions and addressed multifarious issues of contemporary relevance, including beauty standards, human trafficking, gross disparities in wealth, war and imperialism, science and religion, and humanity’s relationship with nature.
A Companion to Japanese Cinema
Go beyond Kurosawa and discover an up-to-date and rigorous examination of historical and modern Japanese cinema In A Companion to Japanese Cinema, distinguished cinematic researcher David Desser delivers insightful new material on a fascinating subject, ranging from the introduction and exploration of under-appreciated directors, like Uchida Tomu and Yoshimura Kozaburo, to an appreciation of the Golden Age of Japanese cinema from the point of view of little-known stars and genres of the 1950s. This Companion includes new resources that deal in-depth with the issue of gender in Japanese cinema, including a sustained analysis of Kawase Naomi, arguably the most important female director in Japa...
