The summer issue of our DIJ Newsletter provides up-to-date insights into our research and publication activities, looks back to recent DIJ events, introduces new researchers, and gives updates on our outreach as well as on DIJ alumni activities. We hope you will enjoy exploring this new edition of the DIJ Newsletter. If you haven’t done so yet, you can subscribe to receive our Newsletters directly to your inbox. The full issues and subscription form are available here.

The new publication Literature After Fukushima. From Marginalized Voices to Nuclear Futurity (Routledge 2023), co-edited by Linda Flores and DIJ’s Barbara Geilhorn, examines how aesthetic representation contributes to a critical understanding of the 3.11 triple disaster – the Great East Japan earthquake, tsunami, and meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in 2011. Based on key works from the 3.11 literature, the book explores how the disaster reframed discourses in trauma studies, eco-criticism, regional identity, food safety, civil society, and beyond. Literature after Fukushima is the first English-language book to provide an in-depth analysis of a wide range of representative literature on post-3.11 and its social ramifications. The ten contributors include Barbara Geilhorn (“Between Trauma Processing, Emotional Healing, and Nuclear Criticism— Documentary Theater Responding to the Fukushima Disaster”) and DIJ alumna Kristina Iwata-Weickgenannt (“Voice and Voicelessness: Reading Vernaculars in Post-3.11 Literature”). The book is an outcome of Barbara’s research project Arts and Literature after Fukushima. An interview with Barbara on this new publication can be found here (in German)

How is political participation in rural Japan linked to the activists’ well-being? In “Being active and sharing happy moments: exploring the relationship of political participation and subjective well-being” (Asian Anthropology, online first) DIJ political scientist Sebastian Polak-Rottmann provides insights into his doctoral dissertation, a qualitative study of the relationship between subjective well-being and political participation in Japan’s Aso region. His study uses an iterative qualitative research design that identifies six dimensions of how to link the two phenomena. In Japanese regions characterized by demographic decline and aging, well-being is interpreted primarily as a relational phenomenon whose meaning unfolds against the backdrop of a specifically rural context. However, his research shows that it is also situated in the everyday lives of the interviewees and connected to the enjoyment of other people. Sebastian’s doctoral dissertation is available full-text in open access (in German) here

We are pleased to announce the publication of a Special Issue of Contemporary Japan (vol. 35, no. 1) on “Tokyo Olympics 2020: Between Dream and Contention”, guest edited by David Chiavacci and Iris Wieczorek. The issue features an interdisciplinary collection of seven articles covering the success/failure of the Olympics for various stakeholders, urban development strategies, media narratives, online political discourses, the anti-Olympic movement, Olympic reality and fantasy in the anime Akira, and a theoretical critique of capitalist realism, as well as two commentaries critiquing the costs and corruption of the Games and Japan’s treatment of migrants in the name of Olympic preparations. Rounding out the issue, our book review section covers English and Japanese language publications from the fields of history, policy studies, and anthropology. Please see the full issue here