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

Xiang Jingjing,Medicine and Confucianism: A Study on Medical Cultural Exchange and Knowledge Circulation in Early Modern East Asia (2023/12/15)
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 (2023/12/6)
Nobuyuki, Matsui. Evolving Postwar Japanese Philosophy: Odyssey Towards a Contemporary Cosmology through the Human Body, Technology, and Ecology (2023/10/18)
Aoi, Mochizuki. Refugee Resettlement as a Global Issue: Thinking from the Foundation of Belonging and Survival of Syrian Refugees in Foreign Countries (written in Japanese) (2023/6/22)
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 (2023/7/19)
Yuko, Yato et al. (eds.) Parenting and Education in Contemporary China: Challenges and Views to the Future from Developmental Psychology (2023/5/31)
Nobuyuki, Matsui. and Witz, Fernando. Globally Shared Common Sense from the Philosophy of Imagination (2022/12/14)
Nara, Oda. Invented Traditional Medicine: A History of Medical Policy in Vietnam (written in Japanese) (2022/12/7)
Satoshi Nagano, Keikoh Ryu, and Miki Mikami (eds.), Theory and Practice of Gerontology: Long Life Wellnes (2022/10/26)
Sachio Nakato and Choi Jung Hoon (eds.),New Horizons of North Korean Studies: The Search for Theoretical Area Studies (2022/9/30)
Chika Obiya, Modernity in the Veil: The Experience of Post-socialist Uzbekistan (2022/7/13)
Jinhye Lee, Living in Two Asias: Ethnic Problems and Acculturation in the Koryo Salam Diaspora in Contemporary Kazakhstan (written in Japanese)（2022/6/22）
Midori Kirihara, Food Regulations and the Internationalization of the Halal Industry in the Modern Islamic World: The Idea and Driving Power of Malaysia (written in Japanese) (2022/6/15)
Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and it Trembled: Voices from Syria (2022/6/9)
Khashan Ammar, The Origins of the Islamic Economy: From the Making of Law in the Age of Muhammad to Contemporary Innovation (written in Japanese) (2022/6/3)
Shun Watanabe, Ruling Networks and Resource Distributions in Modern Arab Monarchies: The Challenges of Non-oil-producing Jordan (written in Japanese) (2022/5/25)
Junko Toriyama, The Ethnography of "Persona": Women, Inequality and Desire in Contemporary Egypt (written in Japanese)
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（2022.4.20）

"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.