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A shape-shifter arrives at Tokyo harbour in human form, set to embark on an unstoppable rampage through the city’s train network… A young woman is accompanied home one night by a reclusive student, and finds herself lured into a flat full of eerie Egyptian artefacts… A man suspects his young wife’s obsession with picnicking every weekend in the city’s parks hides a darker motive… At first, Tokyo appears in these stories as it does to many outsiders: a city of bewildering scale, awe-inspiring modernity, peculiar rules, unknowable secrets and, to some extent, danger. Characters observe their fellow citizens from afar, hesitant to stray from their daily routines to engage with them....
This beautifully designed book is a celebration of one of the world's most creative, dynamic and fascinating cities: Tokyo. It spans 400 years, with highlights including Kano school paintings; the iconic woodblock prints of Hiroshige; Tokyo Pop Art posters; the photography of Moriyama Daido and Ninagawa Mika; manga; film; and contemporary art by Murakami Takashi and Aida Makoto. Visually bold and richly detailed, this publication looks at a city which has undergone constant destruction and renewal and it tells the stories of the people who have made Tokyo so famous with their insatiable appetite for the new and innovative - from the samurai to avantgarde artists today. Co-edited by Japanese art specialists and curators Lena Fritsch and Clare Pollard from Oxford University, this accessible volume features 28 texts by international experts of Japanese culture, as well as original statements by influential artists.
In early modern Japan, thousands of sexually explicit paintings, prints, and illustrated books with texts were produced, euphemistically called spring pictures (shunga). Frequently tender, funny and beautiful, shunga were mostly done within the popular school known as pictures of the floating world (ukiyo-e), by celebrated artists such as Utamaro and Hokusai. Erotic Japanese art was heavily suppressed in Japan from the 1870s, and as a result it has only been made possible to publish unexpurgated examples in Japan within the last 20 years. This publication presents this fascinating art in its historical and cultural context, drawing on the latest scholarship and featuring over 400 images of works from major public and private collections.
The tea ceremony persists as one of the most evocative symbols of Japan. Originally a pastime of elite warriors in premodern society, it was later recast as an emblem of the modern Japanese state, only to be transformed again into its current incarnation, largely the hobby of middle-class housewives. How does the cultural practice of a few come to represent a nation as a whole? Although few non-Japanese scholars have peered behind the walls of a tea room, sociologist Kristin Surak came to know the inner workings of the tea world over the course of ten years of tea training. Here she offers the first comprehensive analysis of the practice that includes new material on its historical changes, ...
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"A joint publication of the Social Science Research Council and New York University Press."
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Yoshiro thinks he might never die. A hundred years old and counting, he is one of Japan's many 'old-elderly'; men and women who remember a time before the air and the sea were poisoned, before terrible catastrophe promted Japan to shut itself off from the rest of the world. He may live for decades yet, but he knows his beloved great-grandson - born frail and prone to sickness - might not survive to adulthood. Day after day, it takes all of Yoshiro's sagacity to keep Mumei alive. As hopes for Japan's youngest generation fade, a secretive organisation embarks on an audacious plan to find a cure - might Yoshiro's great-grandson be the key to saving the last children of Tokyo?
This book showcases recent developments in the field of Japanese applied linguistics. It covers a wide range of current issues and influential theoretical and methodological frameworks, many of which are of concern not only for Japanese specialists but also applied linguists in general. At the same time, the book provides empirical studies that exemplify how these issues and frameworks manifest themselves in contexts that surround first and second language speakers of Japanese. The book is divided into four sections. The first examines language in action, providing a close analysis of language as it is used in interactions between speakers. The second section looks at sociological diversity in Japanese speakers, considering factors such as gender, age, or background. Section three explores how globalization has affected Japanese language use and acquisition. The final section reflects on classroom teaching of Japanese language and culture. This comprehensive, in-depth study will be useful for researchers and graduate students in both applied linguistics and Japanese linguistics.
"Steam Dreams: The Japanese Public Bath plunges into the world of sentō--the history of the public bath, the importance of its preservation and the future of Japanese communal bathing culture. Through a diverse selection of works including historical artefacts, retro-pop ephemera, mural painting, contemporary photography, illustration, and local community art, Steam Dreams presents an introduction to the multifaceted sentō culture of Japan. Steam Dreams features commissioned works by Mizuki Tanaka and Toshizō Hirose, architectural illustrations by Honami Enya, historical photographs of sentō by Kimbei Kusakabe and others, as well as contemporary photographs by Kōtaro Imada, and sentō a...