The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 26 (2015)

English-Language Works by JAAS Members
2013
The following citations and abstracts introduce recent publications, written in
English by the members of the Japanese Association for American Studies, ontopics related to American Studies.

Articles in Journals
Kitahara, Taeko. “Why Are They So Disturbing?: A Study of Classic American
Gangster Movies.” Journal of American and Canadian Studies (Institute ofAmerican and Canadian Studies, Sophia University) 30 (2012): 31–53.
This article focuses on the classic American gangster movies (e.g., Little Caesar, The
Public Enemy, and Scarface), and considers why they disturbed the authorities in
the 1930s. These movies disclosed the impossibility of American dream, visualizedtaboos such as homosexual or incestuous desire, and employed comedy, which enticed
audiences to consume the dangerous contents.

Miyashita, Kazuyo. “Foster’s Songs in Japan.” American Music 30, no. 3 (Fall2012): 308–325.
The songs of Stephen Foster (1826–64) have been among the best-known pieces ofAmerican music in Japan. However, Foster’s life has been largely ignored, perhaps
because some of his songs were seen by some people as politically incorrect. Thisarticle discusses Foster’s music in terms of Japanese education, Japanese cultural
heritage, and as a cross-cultural vehicle.

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English-Language Works in 2013

Articles in Books
Obayashi, Yuki. “Interpreting the Vietnam War from a Vietnamese American
Perspective.” In The Adaptation of History: Essays on Ways of Telling thePast, edited by Laurence Raw and Defne Ersin Tutan, 161–70. Jefferson, NC:
McFarland, 2013.
This chapter shows the subjective selection of history at work through an analysis offilms about the Vietnam War. The author surveys Hollywood’s Vietnam War films aswell as the Vietnamese American films Green Dragon (2002) and Journey from the Fall(2007).

Sasaki, Yutaka. “Japan.” In Encyclopedia of Military Science 2, edited by G. Kurt
Piehler, 727–31. Los Angeles: Sage Reference, 2013.
This chapter examines the evolution of the US-Japan alliance from the early 1950s
until the present day. In particular, it traces the process in which the US-Japan security
relationship has been experiencing significant transformations to adapt itself tochanging security environments in East Asia and elsewhere following the end of theCold War.

Sasaki, Yutaka. “Soft Power.” In Encyclopedia of Military Science 3, edited by G.
Kurt Piehler, 1275–79. Los Angeles: Sage Reference, 2013.
This chapter analyzes the concept of soft power and the use of soft power in US public
diplomacy since the end of the Cold War. It also examines the way in which scholars
of international relations have scrutinized the analytical strengths and limits of the soft
power concept since it entered public discourse in the 1990s.

Books
Kimura, Masato, and Tosh Minohara, eds. Tumultuous Decade: Empire, Society,and Diplomacy in 1930s Japan. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013.
This book analyses the pivotal decade of 1931–1941 from the distinct vantage pointsof Japanese empire, society, and diplomacy to shed new light on and to provide new
insight into what has been called the “tumultuous decade.” Specifically, the times are
examined through a multi-disciplinary lens based on an international history approach.