"I urge Japanese readers to take another look at their elementary and middle school textbooks."
Tag: Japan
Why Does Japanese Society Overlook Racism?
"The Japanese government’s official position denies the very existence of racial discrimination."
NEUT Magazine on Making Space for Social Discourse in Japan
"I want the world to know that there are people speaking up and trying to change society here."
The Healing Power of Virtual Cuteness
Violence underlies the whimsical colonizing of an island in “Animal Crossing.” But perhaps it holds promise for political repair, too.
The “I” in Murakami
Discussing Murakami within the Japanese literary tradition is in itself rare. He is, by his own admission, less well-loved in Japan than abroad.
Mend Your Ways
An exhibition of Japanese textiles celebrates repaired clothing: flipping salvage into sustainability, and damage into beauty.
Make Allies, Break Empires
“Do you want to join the army, or do you want to go to jail?” This question—typically posed by a judge to a teenager charged with a petty crime—animated ...
Female Futures, Future Females
In the midst of an intergalactic war between Earth and an empire of cyborg machines, a mother desperately uploads the consciousness of her dead daughter ...
B-Sides: Satomi Myodo’s “Journey in Search of the Way”
As spiritual autobiographies go, Journey in Search of the Way is a bit of a romp ...
Japan’s Isolation 2.0
The taxi driver who took me from Tokyo train station to my hotel had turned his cell phone sideways, like a television, and propped it up on the dashboard of his car. He was watching a historical ...
The Fortunes of Senso-ji, Tokyo
Asakusa is just west of the Sumida River in the shitamachi, the “old town” of Tokyo. Much of this part of Tokyo, including most of the venerated Buddhist temple ...
Our Migrant World
Within the rhetorical toolbox of contemporary political discourse, the language used to characterize international migration, refugee crises, and border crossings might fairly be called impoverished ...
Rebuild by Design: Interviews with Ricky Burdett and Hitoshi Abe
There is a growing feeling among both critical social scientists and design professionals that the two groups need to undertake a more intensive dialogue. In the New York region, some of this ...
Hirado, the End of the World
This is the latest installment of Public Streets, a biweekly urban observations series curated by Ellis Avery. The journey from Tokyo to the island of Hirado, just off the coast of Nagasaki ...
What Global English Means for
World Literature
Globalization is one of the great issues facing universities today, particularly in humanities departments. It means different things to different people, but most agree that globalization pluralizes ...
Rediscovering Classics: The Essays of Tosaka Jun
Editor’s Note: What follows is the beginning of a new series, “Rediscovering Classics,” that features overlooked or forgotten works of thought and literature that remain relevant and powerful today ...
Murakami on Friendship
It might be fair to say that Haruki Murakami has had two narrative modes in his novels and short stories. Works like Norwegian Wood (1987) illustrate his “normal” mode, in which he recounts a ...
What Makes a “True Novel”?
Minae Mizumura’s A True Novel is an utterly absorbing love story set against the broad backdrop of pre- and postwar Japan. It tells the story of Taro Azuma, who grows up as an orphan in grinding ...
Japanese on Montagu Street
This is the latest installment of Public Streets, a biweekly urban observations series curated by Ellis Avery. “My colleagues think I’m going to come back with this crazy haircut,” says the man in ...
Summer in Snow Country: A Sound and Photo Essay
This is the latest installment of Public Streets, a biweekly urban observations series curated by Ellis Avery. Less than two hours from Tokyo Station by bullet train, the village of Osaki is ...