著者
BURNS Susan L.
出版者
International Research Center for Japanese Studies
雑誌
Nichibunken Japan review : Journal of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (ISSN:09150986)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.16, pp.191-211, 2004-01-01

Following the promulgation of the 1931 “leprosy prevention law,” Japan’s leprosarium system expanded rapidly, and the number of confinees almost tripled between 1930 and 1940. During this decade there was a new fascination with what came to be termed “leprosy literature,” the short stories, essays, and poetry authored by sufferers of leprosy living within the leprosaria. Ho?jo? Tamio, the best known author of “leprosy literature,” published a series of works in literary journals, and a number of collections of “leprosy literature” were published for a general readership. This paper explores the phenomenon of “leprosy literature” by examining the social and cultural context of its production during the 1930s and its role in legitimating the confinement system. This history of leprosy literature is used to reflect upon a contemporary development, the recent publication of the Hansenbyo bungaku zenshu (Collected Works of Hansen Disease Literature).
著者
PALMER Edwina
出版者
International Research Center for Japanese Studies
雑誌
Nichibunken Japan review : journal of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (ISSN:09150986)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.19, pp.47-75, 2007-01-01

This discussion attempts to reconcile various seemingly contradictory research results regarding the origins of Jōmon Japanese. The focus is on testing Oppenheimer’s theory of Holocene outmigration from the former continent of Sundaland in present-day Southeast Asia against the evidence relating to Jōmon Japan and the “Out of Taiwan” hypothesis for Austronesian language dispersal. It is argued here that postglacial flooding of Sundaland prompted some former inhabitants to migrate from around ten or eleven thousand years ago, and that they followed the expanding belt of lucidophyllous forest, eventually to settle in what is now Japan during the Jōmon Period, in accordance with the theory of regional pockets of “laurilignosa culture.” It is stressed that some of these people were probably speakers of Austronesian languages. Further, it is argued that the “Out of Taiwan” movement of Austronesian language speakers could have occurred later as a migratory counterflow accompanying the Holocene maximum, and that an “Out of Sunda” scenario of migration to Japan in the Jōmon period is not necessarily entirely incompatible with such an “Out of Taiwan” theory.
著者
ISHII Satoshi
出版者
International Research Center for Japanese Studies
雑誌
Nichibunken Japan review : Journal of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (ISSN:09150986)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.13, pp.145-170, 2001-01-01

The recent rapid expansion of worldwide communication and transportration networks has made it both possible and inevitable for the Japanese to encounter strangers from different racial, ethnis, and sociocultural backgrounds not only overseas but also in Japan.Simply encountering them without approptiate preparation, however, does not guatantee expected intercultural understanding; it oftes causes mutual fear, misuunderstanding, and suspicion within people placed in such intercultural communication situations. The study of intercultural communication, which describes and explains such dailt occurrences and possibly solves problems related to them, has been, through most of its academic history, a prepominantly U.S.-senterd rnterprise in Japan.These daysm therfore, Japanese scholars in the field are growingly expected to contribute non-Western thoughts and frames of reference from their Japanese sociocultural background.In this scholarly context, the present study attempts to analyze the conventional sociofolkloric marebito/ijin/gaijin ambivalent predispositions and attitudes toward strangers from different racial, ethnic, and sociocultural backgroudx.It will contribute from non-Euro-American prespestives to the revision or improvement of Western intercultural communication theories and research methods by analyzing the long-standing Japanese welcome-nonwelcome and inclusion-exclusion amnbivalence frequently manifested in their encounters with strange people whose racial, ethnic, and sociocultural backgrounds are different from the average Japanese.
著者
OGATA Takayuki LI Wei YAMADA Shoji
出版者
International Research Center for Japanese Studies
雑誌
Nichibunken Japan review : Journal of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies
巻号頁・発行日
vol.22, pp.213-221, 2010-01-01

Th is study analyzes the location of 164 renowned Japanese gardens in the Kyoto basin, that is the Kamogawa alluvial fan and the Katsuragawa fl ood plain. Th e gardens were mapped using Geographic Information System (GIS) technology. Th e mapped data indicate that physiographic environments constrain the location of the gardens. Rock gardens (karesansui type gardens) are located accross the whole area of the alluvial fan, while water gardens (chisen type gardens) are concentrated along the piedmont spring zones and the artifi cial canals of the irrigation system known as the Biwako sosui (constructed in 1890). In brief, hydrological conditions aff ect the location of Japanese gardens, which is primarily constrained by surface geomorphic units.