Japan Forum

Japan Forum is the official journal of the British Association for Japanese Studies. Its primary objectives are to publish original research in the field of Japanese Studies; and to make international scholarship available to both specialists and non-specialists.

Japan Forum is multidisciplinary; publishing contributions from across the arts and humanities and the social sciences including from: archaeology, language, literature, philosophy and culture; as well as history, economics, politics, international relations and law.

The current editorial team took over in 2021 and are chiefly based at University of East Anglia.  Through our connection with the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures we are wishing to increase submissions from the visual arts, but we also welcome submissions that cross disciplinary boundaries or that do not otherwise match the above subject areas. 

We award the annual Ian Nish Prize to early career submissions that demonstrates innovation through research. (For previous winners, including this year’s, please follow this link.)

All submissions are independently refereed.

Please follow this link to the journal’s website and the latest online issue.

Latest articles

  • Capitalism, Alienation, and Transgression in Contemporary Japanese Women’s Fiction
    by Rebecca L. CopelandNina Cornyetz
  • Urban Ambiguity: Modernist Descriptions in Kajii Motojirō
    by Miyabi GotoMiyabi Goto is assistant professor of Japanese in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures and Cultures at the University of Kentucky. Her research focuses on modern Japanese literature during and since the Meiji period. Email: miyabi.goto@uky.edu
  • In the Mood for Kimono: Hayashi Mariko and the Weaving of Japanese Fashion into Popular Fiction
    by Lucile Druet Lucile Druet is Associate Professor at Kansai Gaidai University (Osaka). Her teaching covers literature, painting traditions, theatrical performances, film and Japanese fashion, focusing on kimono. Interested in the intersection of clothing and embodiment, she researches how kimono is currently practiced in Kyoto and how it appears in fiction and poetry.
  • A silent fight to challenge the norm in Matsuda Aoko’s ‘Sutakkingu Kanō’ (2012)
    by Daniela MoroDaniela Moro received her Master’s Degree from Waseda University in Tokyo and her Ph.D. from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, with a thesis on the works of Enchi Fumiko that was later published as a monograph. She is currently Associate Professor in Japanese Studies in the Department of Humanities at the University of Turin. She is interested in the relationship between Japanese literature and feminist, gender and queer studies. In particular, she focuses on female writers working between the 1960s and the 1980s, but she also looks at contemporary writers. E-mail: daniela.moro@unito.it
  • Becoming inauthentic: capitalism, commodification, and performance in Wataya risa’s Insutōru
    by Christopher SmithLanguages, Literatures, and Cultures, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USAChristopher Smith Christopher Smith received a PhD in Japanese literature from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa and is currently an Assistant Professor of Modern Japanese Literature at the University of Florida, where he teaches courses on modern Japanese literature, Japanese culture, manga, and anime. His research focuses on postwar Japanese literature, particularly contemporary literature (Heisei-Reiwa), as well as Japanese pop culture, including manga and anime. He is especially interested in examining how contemporary literature and culture represents, manipulates, challenges, and ultimately plays with Japanese history and identity. He recently published a translation of Tanaka Yasuo’s Somehow, Crystal (Kurodahan Press). E-mail: csmith2@ufl.edu
  • Suzuki Izumi’s Escape from the World of Women
    by Irit WeinbergIrit Weinberg completed her PhD at Tel Aviv University, specializing in contemporary Japanese literature. Her dissertation, titled “Spaces of Their Own: Women-Only Worlds in Contemporary Japanese Women's Fiction,” explores the intersection between fictional spaces, socio-political conditions, and the literary aesthetics of the writers. Her current research project centers on immigrant writers in Japan. Irit currently serves as an adjunct lecturer at the Department of Asian Studies at the Hebrew University and is also actively involved in translating Japanese fiction into Hebrew. Email: iritwein@post.tau.ac.il
  • Kingdom of the Sick: A History of Leprosy and Japan
    by Linda GalvaneUniversity of Kansas
  • Lorraine Plourde, Tokyo Listening: Sound and Sense in a Contemporary City,
    by Luca ProiettiSOAS University of London
  • Double truth: employment insecurity and gender inequality in Japan’s neoliberal promotion of side jobs
    by Iori HamadaIori Hamada, Ph.D. Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Iori Hamada is a Lecturer in Japanese Studies at Monash University. Her research primarily focuses on labour integration and social inclusion, particularly in Australia and Japan. In 2019, Iori was awarded the Institute of Social Science and Oxford University Press Prize for her co-authored journal article titled ‘Silent Exits: Risk and Post-3.11 Skilled Migration from Japan to Australia’ (Social Science Japan Journal). In 2021, she received a Fellowship of Higher Education Academy from Advance Higher Education, UK. Her monograph, ‘The Japanese Restaurant: Tasting the New Exotic in Australia’ (Routledge), further underscores her contribution to the discourse on international labour and cross-cultural dynamics. Email: iori.hamada@monash.edu
  • Parallel Modernism. Koga Harue and Avant-Garde Art in Modern Japan
    by Andrea BourgogneKing's College London

Japan Forum Editorial Team

Chief Editor:

Hannah Osborne – University of East Anglia, UK (hannah.l.osborne@uea.ac.uk)

Managing Editor: 

Laurence Green – SOAS University of London, UK (japanforum@soas.ac.uk)

Editors:

Simon Kaner – University of East Anglia, UK (s.kaner@uea.ac.uk)

Rayna Denison – University of Bristol, UK (r.denison@bristol.ac.uk)

Ra Mason – University of East Anglia, UK (ra.mason@uea.ac.uk)

Sherzod Muminov – University of East Anglia, UK (s.muminov@uea.ac.uk)

Reviews Editors:

Eriko Tomizawa-Kay – University of East Anglia, UK (e.tomizawa-kay@uea.ac.uk)

Christopher Hayes – Teesside University, UK (c.hayes@tees.ac.uk)

You can follow us on Twitter at: Japan Forum (@JapanForum21)

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