Academic Publications

The AJI Book Club has started!

The AJI Book Club was launched in April 2022. The purpose is to introduce and discuss books related to Asian and Japanese studies. The basic idea is that there are many benefits in providing opportunities for all our researchers to talk about their favorite books, materials and literature.

The AJI Book Club comprises the "Book Launch" series that introduces new publications, the "Meet the Author" series in which authors talk about important literature in the history of research, and the "Featuring Essential Literature" series in which authors talk about historical classics and important contemporary literature.

The "AJI Book Launch" series will be held constantly!

The "Book Launch" series is a "guide to new books". Authors, editors, and translators will be invited to talk about the books of the members of the Asia-Japan Research Institute, the books that have been created through the activities related to the Institute, and new books on Asian and Japanese studies.

This is an opportunity to listen directly to the author of a new book, the one who knows it best. Also, this is a chance for graduate students and new generation of researchers to gain useful knowledge.

Please feel free to join in and invite your colleagues and friends to enjoy this Book Launch series.

Previous AJI Book Launch series

No. Date Author(s) and Book Title
23 2024/12/13 Kazutaka Sogo, The Structure of the Party Politics in Imperial Japan: Vision of Integrating Two Major Parties and the “Three Pro-Constitution Parties” (July 2024, Yoshida Shoten) [Written in Japanese]
22 2024/11/13 Mika Igarashi, Human Rights Protection and Regional International Oganizations: The Role and Potential of the African Union (February 2024, Koyo Shobo) [Written in Japanese]
21 2024/7/29 Takaya Negishi, The Media Theory of Baseball: The Reality Created Outside the Stadium (March 2024, Seikyusha) [Written in Japanese]
20 2024/5/28 Ryo Tsunoda, Postwar History of Imperial Japanese Army Officers: Transformation from “Reflection of the Imperial Army” to “Historical Revisionism” (March 2024, Shinyosha) [Written in Japanese]
19 2024/3/14 Emiko Sunaga and Wakako Kumakura, Digital Islamicate Studies (February 2024, Jinbun Shoin) [Written in Japanese]
18 2023/12/15 Xiang Jingjing, Medicine and Confucianism: A Study on Medical Cultural Exchange and Knowledge Circulation in Early Modern East Asia (May 2023, Jinbun Shoin) [Written in japanese]
17 2023/12/6 Muhammad Riza Nurdin, Islamic Civil Society Organizations and Their Role in Forming Social Capital in Disaster-Hit Communities in Southeast Asia: The Cases of Aceh and East Java, Indonesia (March 2023, Ritsumeikan Asia-Japan Research Series)　
16 2023/10/18 Nobuyuki Matsui, Evolving Postwar Japanese Philosophy: Odyssey Towards a Contemporary Cosmology through the Human Body, Technology, and Ecology (March 2023, Ritsumeikan Asia-Japan Research Series)
15 2023/6/22 Aoi Mochizuki, Refugee Resettlement as a Global Issue: Thinking from the Foundation of Belonging and Survival of Syrian Refugees in Foreign Countries (March 2023, Nakanishiya Shuppan) [Written in Japanese]
14 2023/7/19 Jin Chunyu, Chinese and Japanese Poetry and Ci: A Study of the “Yan Xi Ci” and the Reception of Chinese Ci Poetries by the Japanese (March 2023, Hōyūshoten)[Written in Japanese]
13 2023/5/31 Yuko Yato, Yuanhong Ji, and Yi Sun, Parenting and Education in Contemporary China: Challenges and Views to the Future from Developmental Psychology (March 2023, Nakanishiya Shuppan) [Written in Japanese]
12 2022/12/14 Nobuyuki Matsui ed., Globally Shared Common Sense from the Philosophy of Imagination: Bridging Eastern and Western Perspectives (September 2022, Asia-Japan Research Institute, Ritsumeikan University)
11 2022/12/7 Nara Oda, Invented Traditional Medicine: A History of Medical Policy in Vietnam (March 2022, Kyoto University Press).[Written in Japanese]
10 2022/10/26 Satoshi Nagano, Keikoh Ryu, and Miki Mikami (eds.), Theory and Practice of Gerontology: Long Life Wellnes (April 2022, Ronsosha) [Written in Japanese]
9 2022/9/30 Sachio Nakato and Choi Jung Hoon (eds.),New Horizons of North Korean Studies: The Search for Theoretical Area Studies (March 2022, Koyo Shobo) [Written in Japanese]
8 2022/7/13 Chika Obiya, Modernity in the Veil: The Experience of Post-socialist Uzbekistan（January 2022, Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai） [Written in Japanese]
7 2022/6/22 Jinhye Lee, Living in Two Asias: Ethnic Problems and Acculturation in the Koryo Saram Diaspora in Contemporary Kazakhstan (February 2022, Nakanishiya Shuppan) [Written in Japanese]
6 2022/6/15 Midori Kirihara, Dietary Laws in the Modern Islamic World and Internationalization of the Halal Industry: Ideas and Initiatives in Malaysia(March 2022, Nakanishiya Shuppan) [Written in Japanese]
5 2022/6/9 Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and it Trembled: Voices from Syria (Custom House , 2018; translated into Japanese in 2019, Iwanami Shoten)
4 2022/6/3 Ammar Khashan, The Origins of the Islamic Economy: From the Making of Law in the Age of Muhammad to Present Innovations (February 2022, Nakanishiya Shuppan)[Written in Japanese]
3 2022/5/25 Shun Watanabe, Ruling Networks and Resource Distributions in Modern Arab Monarchies: The Challenges of Non-oil-producing Jordan (Feburuary 2022, Nakanishiya Shuppan)[Written in Japanese]
2 2022/5/20 Junko Toriyama, The Ethnography of “Persona”: Women, Inequality and Desire in Contemporary Egypt (March 2022, Shumpusha) [Written in Japanese]
1 2022/4/20 Ai Kawamura, Grafting an Islamic Sapling onto the Tree of Legal Dispute Resolution: Alternative Approaches to Civil Disputes in Islamic Finance in the Gulf and Southeast Asia（December 2021、AJI Books Series）

"Meet the Author"series is here!

There are many books that have been published in the recent past and that have great significance in the history of research, which have already become "classics" in the eyes of younger researchers. Since the authors are still active, they are not old books. However, for younger researchers, these books may have been published before they were born and it is hard for them to relate to documents with such a historical aura.

What if we had a chance to hear directly from the author and ask them questions about such book? Wouldn't that be wonderful?

In order to provide such an opportunity, AJI started a series in which you can talk to the authors about important books that have already been published.

The first "Meet the Author" featured Professor Kota Suechika's The State Transformation and Islam in Contemporary Syria (2005). This book discusses the process in which historical Syria (Sham) was divided into "smaller Syrias" in the twentieth century, and how that flow will continue in the future. It can be said that this book foresaw the further division of Syria (since the Syrian civil war from 2011) in the twenty-first century. It was an opportunity to hear about such books directly from the author. Please feel free to join us. For more information, click here.

Previous ”Meet the Author” series

GyongSu Mun, The Jeju 4.3 Incident: The Narrative of Death and Rebirth in the “Island Country” (2022/11/2)
Kota Suechika, The State Transformation and Islam in Contemporary Syria (2022/7/6)

We are planning the "Featuring Essential Literature" series

Another upcoming series is "Featuring Essential Literature". In this series, researchers who are familiar with specific historical literature will "talk about important historical classics or important materials" in the history of a specific research field.

This planning is currently under way to start this series in this fall. Please stay tuned.