Series: SOAS Studies in Modern and Contemporary Japan

The Translocal Island of Okinawa reveals the underrepresented memories, visions and actions involved in the making of Okinawan resistance against its subordinated status under the US-Japan security system, beyond the narrowly defined political, cultural and geographical borders of locality. As Okinawa’s base politics is a problem deeply rooted in the context of East Asia, so is the history of the...

Haruki Murakami and the Search for Self-Therapy by Associate Professor Jonathan Dil explores the global literary phenomenon that is Haruki Murakami. Murakami has mentioned that he started writing fiction as a means of self-therapy, though he has not elaborated much on what drove him to seek this self-therapy. This book proposes that understanding why Murakami writes, alongside how he writes,...

Ongoing arguments over how histories are honoured – as evidenced by the conflict between South Korea and Japan over the opening of Tokyo’s Heritage Information Centre in June 2020 – reveal the extent to which heritage processes enable states to assert legitimacy and power on a global stage. Here, Contesting Memorial Spaces of Japan’s Empire shines a timely spotlight on...