Table of Contents

Dedication, Acknowledgements, SECTION 1: Social Sciences, Japan as No.‘X ’, Some Problems Concerning Hasekura Tsunenega’s Mission, Japan and South-East Asia in Modern History, Japan Italy Germany and the Anti-Comintern Pact, Some Thoughts on the Origins of the Meiji Constitution 1889, A Cartel Model of Japanese Politics, Religion and Politics in Contemporary Japan, Japan as Occupying Power: The Revision of History, Kita Ikki and Japanese Fascism, Relations Between the Japanese Government and the Pharmaceutical Industry: The Historical Background, New Social Historical Research Methods into the History of Modern, Computer Interpersonal Communication and Education in Japan, The Survival of the Abacus in Modem Japan, The Armour of Honorific Speech: Some Lateral Thinking about keigo, Anthropology and Japanese Studies, Empirical Status of Nihanjinron: How Real is the Myth, Changing Images: Japan and the Ainu as Perceived by Europe, Rethinking the Purposes of Japanese Peasant Studies, Rethinking Western Notions of Japanese Women: Some Aspects of Female Japanese Reality Versus Stereotypes about Japanese Women, Sociological Reflections on Social Structure From a Point of View of an Aging Society, The Aging of Japanese Society: Consequences and Reactions, Consumption and Consumerism in Japan Being in the Group: Spacio-temporal Place in Japanese Social Organization, New Japanese Mythologies: Faltering Discipline and the Ailing Housewife in Japan, The Concept of yume (Dreams) in Japanese Daily Life, Old and New Sources of Japanese Progress, Studying Material Culture as a Means to Understanding Japan, SECTION 2: Ideology and Thought, Rethinking the Study of Religion in Japan, The Popular Beliefs of Contemporary Japan, In Search of a New Interpretation of Ascetic Experiences, Is there a Religion called shinto, Upper-Class Heian Society and Japanese Folk Religion, The Meaning of Ideology in Modern Japan, ‘Restoration’, ‘Emperor’, ‘Diet’, ‘Prefecture’ or: How Japanese Concepts were Mistranslated into Western Languages, Rethinking Tokugawa Thought, Ideology and Cultural Arguments of Japan’s Distinctiveness: The Case of Japan’s Work Ethic, The Vicissitudes of Bushido, Some Aspects of Inari, the God of Inari in Kyoto, The Religious Background of the Deification of Tokugawa Ieyasu, Anthropological Aspects of the Japanese Meal: Tradition, Internationalization and Aesthetics, How Japanese is Japan in the 1980s, Notes, Index

About the Author

Adriana Boscaro, Franco Gatti, Massimo Raveri