Theories and methods in Japanese studies: current state and future developments
Subtitle: papers in honor of Josef Kreiner
By: Hans Dieter Ölschleger (ed.).
Contributors: Kreiner, Josef.; Ölschleger, Hans-Dieter.
Publisher: V&R Unipress; Bonn University Press
Published: 2008
Place of publication: Göttingen
Language: eng
Number of pages: 358
ISBN-13: 9783899713558
Subjects: Japan -- Study and teaching.
Description: Ronald DORE Japan – Sixty Years of Modernization? .... 11 

KUWAYAMA Takami Japanese Anthropology and Folklore Studies.... 25 

ITŌ Abito The Distinctiveness and Marginality of Japanese Culture.... 43 

FUKUTA AJIO How the Task of Studying Yanagita Kunio Has Developed.... 63 

ISHIGE Naomichi Historical Survey of the Food Culture .... 75 

Hans Dieter ÖLSCHLEGER The Cultural Turn in German Japanese Studies.... 91 

Klaus ANTONI The Divine Country: On State and Religion in Modern Japan .... 101 

Sepp LINHART The Study of Japanese Values .... 123 

Axel KLEIN Studies on the Japanese Political System.... 141 

Ralph LÜTZELER German Geographical Research on Japan .... 153 

SASAKI Kōmei The Origins of Japanese Ethnic Culture – Looking Back and Forward.... 167 

Patrick HEINRICH Casting Light on the Past: Lessons on the Origin and Formation of Japanese-Ryūkyūan.... 185 

TAKARA Kurayoshi Mainstream and Future Tasks of Studies in Ryūkyūan History.... 205 

Gregory SMITS Ryūkyū’s Relations with China and Japan.... 215 

Rosa CAROLI Recent Trends in Historiography on Modern Okinawa .... 229 

Ulrike SCHAEDE Japan’s Business Practices in the 21st Century.... 251 

Karl August NEUHAUSEN Ultima Orientis Thule Reconsidered.... 271 

Wolfgang MICHEL Medicine and Allied Sciences in the Cultural Exchange .... 285 

Christian OBERLÄNDER Japan’s Deutschlandpolitik in the Postwar Period .... 303 

Claudius C. MÜLLER Museums of Ethnology and Japanese Studies.... 313 

Timon SCREECH An Iconography of Nihon-bashi.... 323 

Justin STAGL Japan As the Other – A Personal Account .... 337 

Harumi BEFU Consumer Nihonjinron.... 345
Notes: Collection of papers presented at international symposium, held at University of Bonn, Feb. 2-3, 2006.


Includes bibliographical references.


Includes some articles translated from Japanese.


In February 2006, more than 30 leading scholars in Japanese Studies gathered at Bonn University to discuss various facets of the current state of this field and its future directions. The lectures and discussions have been assembled in a proceedings volume, which opens with a paper on the character of modernization in Japanese society based on the keynote lecture by R.P. Dore, the doyen of Japanese social studies. This volume also features papers on anthropology, Ryukyuan and Ainu studies, and the perception of Japan and Japanese culture by the West as reflected in various fields of study. The dominant theme running through the contributions is the methodological and theoretical evaluation of different approaches and the validity of their results. These papers delineate the major directions in which Japanese Studies must proceed in order to fulfill their mission of furthering intercultural communication by interpreting Japanese culture and society.