Publications of Note

Deux ans au Japon (1876–1878): Journal et correspondance de Louis Kreit mann, officier du génie. Transcription by Pierre Kreitmann. Collège de France, Institute des Hautes Études Japonaises, Paris, 2015. 672 pages. €38, paper. Louis Kreitmann (1851–1914) was a member of the French military mission sent to help Japan develop a modern army. Transcribed here are his journal and more than 65 letters he sent to his family, interspersed with hundreds of his photographs and other images. The volume includes a detailed description of the role of France in the reform of the Japanese army, chronology, glossary, bibliography, index, and background notes on people and places, from Amano Sadayoshi to Yokosuka.

Prekarisierungsgesellschaften in Ostasien? Aspekte der sozialen Ungleichheit in China und Japan. Edited by Stephan Köhn and Monika Unkel. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden, 2016. viii, 391 pages. €48. This volume on precarity and social inequality in East Asia includes essays on Japan by Volker Elis, Anke Scherer, Carola Hommerich, Lisette Gebhardt, Annette Schad-Seifert, Julia Obinger, and Steffi Richter.

Blumen im Schnee: Eine historische Erzählung. By Yoshimura Akira; translated by Gerhard Bierwirth and Arno Moriwaki. Iudicium Verlag, Munich, 2015. 128 pages. €12.50. This German translation of Yoshimura Akira’s historical tale documents the struggle by provincial doctor Kasahara Ryosaku against beliefs, traditional medicine, and bureaucrats to introduce the smallpox vaccine to Japan. An essay by Gerhard Bierwirth places Yoshimura’s narrative in a larger context of Japanese literature and developments in the West.

Childhood in Japanese History: Concepts and Experiences/Kindheit in der japanischen Geschichte: Vorstellungen und Erfahrungen. Edited by Michael Kinski, Harald Salomon, and Eike Großmann. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden, 2016. xv, 542 pages. €98. This volume examines images of childhood, ranging from birth to cultures of parenthood, work, filial behavior, and children’s literature. Six chapters are in English, eight are in German.

Writing Behind the Scenes: Stage and Gender in Enchi Fumiko’s Works. By Daniela Moro. Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, Venice, 2015. 130 pages. The book focuses on a selection of Enchi Fumiko’s late novels and novellas set in the world of traditional performing arts. Moro analyzes intertextual references to kabuki, nō, and the theatrical production of Mishima Yukio through a dialogue with gender studies, queer studies, and theories of performativity and memory.

40 Years since Reversion: Negotiating the Okinawan Difference in Japan Today. Edited by Ina Hein and Isabelle Prochaska-Meyer. Department of East Asian Studies/Japanese Studies, University of Vienna, 2015. 277 pages. €25, paper. The 11 essays in this volume were originally presented at a 2012 conference at the University of Vienna. They are organized in sections on history and politics, language, representations and images, and changes and transformations, with an introduction by the coeditors and two short “Messages from Okinawa” by an activist and a photographer who also participated in the 2012 conference.

Adoption of Corporate Social Responsibility by Japanese Companies. By Uwe Holtschneider. Iudicium Verlag, Munich, 2015. 283 pages. €49. In this doctoral dissertation, the author approaches the recent worldwide adoption of corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices as part of the global spread of management concepts. His analyses provide insight into how Japanese institutions and stakeholders facilitated rapid CSR adoption and the process of CSR diffusion.

Le christianisme à l’épreuve du Japon médiéval ou les vicissitudes de la première mondialisation 1549–1569. By Nathalie Kouamé. Éditions Karthala, Paris, 2016. xii, 204 pages. €19.00, paper. Drawing on both European and Japanese sources, Kouamé offers in-depth analysis of Christian missionaries’ experiences during their first 20 years in Japan. She examines the content of their conversations and debates with the Japanese about their respective ideas of the origins of the world, divine beings, and life in the hereafter. The work offers an example of the difficulties in the process of globalization that began in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Seven Demon Stories from Medieval Japan. By Noriko T. Reider. Utah State University Press, Logan, 2016. xiv, 292 pages. $33.95, paper. Oni, supernatural creatures who play important roles in literature, lore, and folk belief, “were perceived to be living entities” (p. 3) in medieval Japan. This volume offers...