- Publications of Note
Poèmes de l’ermitage: Sōdō shishū. By Ryōkan; translated and annotated by Alain-Louis Colas. Le Bruit du temps, Paris, 2017. 336 pages. €26.00, paper. The 181 poems translated here (from Chinese to French) are selected from a larger work (Sōdō shishū) by the Zen monk and hermit-poet Ryōkan (1758–1831). Taken together, the verses in this collection, known for their naturalness and sincerity, comprise the essential features of a treatise on Buddhism, which Ryōkan never wrote.
Avertissements, suivi de Kera Yoshishige, Histoires curieuses touchant le maître de zen Ryōkan. By Ryōkan; translated and annotated by Alain-Louis Colas. Le Bruit du temps, Paris, 2017. 192 pages. €16.00, paper. This companion volume to Poèmes de l’ermitage offers snippets of commentary from Ryōkan, including warnings or “commands” issued to him as well as memories of Kera Yoshishige, the son of a friend. These are presented in the original Japanese with translations into French; notes on each comment are provided by the translator.
L’arme biologique japonaise, 1880–2010: Réalitiés historiques et anatomie de la mémoire. By Arnaud Doglia. Peter Lang Publishers, Bern, 2016. 396 pages. €91.00, paper; €101.15, E-book. This work focuses on biological weapons developed and used by Japan between the 1920s and 1945. The origins of this armament date to the 1880s and are best known in the activities of Unit 731. Doglia shows that scientists involved in this project were silent after 1945 but finds other voices that help readers understand how such practices and institutions were established.
Das “Fließen der Assoziationen” im Erzählwerk von Kawabata Yasunari (1899–1972). By Mechthild Duppel-Takayama. Tectum Verlag, Marburg, 2017. 270 pages. €34.95. Duppel-Takayama considers three works by Kawabata Yasunari (Yukiguni, Yama no oto, and Mizuumi) to examine the [End Page 253] Western perception of Japanese literature as exotic, strange, and illogical. She explores the narrative structure of the works and specific characteristics of Kawabata’s prose.
In tiefer Düsternis ein Leuchten: Religiosität in Erzählungen Izumi Kyōkas. By Benedikt Vogel. Iudicium Verlag, Munich, 2017. 138 pages. €15.00. While other authors of the Meiji period sought new forms of expression, Izumi Kyōka continued to craft old-fashioned stories about ghosts and other mysterious phenomena. Vogel seeks to shed new light on Izumi Kyōka’s nonfiction and prose by focusing on complex ontological discourses and showing how the author’s works capture the incomprehensibility and multiplicity of life.
Der Mythos von der vollkommen geschaffenen Kunst: Erfundene Traditionen und ihre Integration in Nō und Kyōgen mit Schwerpunkt auf der japanischen Moderne. By Jan Schumacher. Iudicium Verlag, Munich, 2017. 603 pages. €80.00. This book provides an overview of the history of nō and kyōgen with emphasis on Japanese modernism for students new to traditional Japanese theater. It begins with the foundations of theater art in the fourteenth century and explores the Japanese theater tradition and its reception around the world.
Identität und Selbstkonzept: Autobiographien japanischer Unterneehmer der Nachkriegszeit. By Matthias Wittig. Iudicium Verlag, Munich, 2016. 485 pages. €56.00. In this dissertation thesis, Wittig combines questions of literary and historical sciences by studying the Japanese entrepreneurial autobiography. The four previously untranslated autobiographies presented here yield insights into the self-understanding and group culture of Japanese business leaders in postwar reconstruction. They also provide material for further exploration in economic and social history, social psychology, and textual analysis.
Media-Contents und Katastrophen Beiträge zur medialen Verarbeitung der Großen Ostjapanischen Erdbebenkatastrophe. Edited by Matthias Koch, Harald Meyer, Takahiro Nishiyama, and Reinhard Zöllner. Iudicium Verlag, [End Page 254] Munich, 2016. 203 pages. €26.00. These essays originated in a 2012 symposium examining the media portrayals of the victims of the 3.11 disasters. There are seven essays in the volume, one each by the four coeditors, Mamoru Itō, Yumi Ōshima, and Kuniko Sakata.
Contents Tourism in Japan: Pilgrimages to “Sacred Sites” of Popular Culture. By Philip Seaton, Takayoshi Yamamura, Akiko Sugawa-Shimada, and Kyungjae Jang. Cambria Press, Amherst NY, 2017. xiii, 306 pages. $119.99. Kontentsu...