Japanese Families In The American Wonderland

Adult-directed utopian fiction has historically rejected depictions of persons with disabilities, underrepresenting a community that comprises an estimated 15% of the world's population. From the earliest stories of utopias written for and about children, however, persons with disabilities have been included in abundance, and are central to classic narratives like The Wizard of Oz and Winnie the Pooh. In a perfect world centered on children and their caretakers, these works argue, characters with a diverse range of bodies and minds must flourish. Spanning from Lewis Carroll's 1865 Alice in Wonderland to Jordan Peele's 2019 film Us, this examination of the wonderland demonstrates the role that bodily and neurological diversity plays in an ever-popular subgenre.

Whether watching Studio Ghibli adaptations of British children's books, visiting Harry Potter sites in Britain or eating at Alice in Wonderland-themed restaurants in Tokyo, the Japanese have a close and multifaceted relationship with British children's literature. In this, the first comprehensive study to explore this engagement, Catherine Butler considers its many manifestations in print, on the screen, in tourist locations and throughout Japanese popular culture. Taking stock of the influence of literary works such as Gulliver's Travels, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Tom's Midnight Garden, and the Harry Potter series, this lively account draws on literary criticism, translation, film and tourist studies to explore how British children's books have been selected, translated, understood, adapted and reworked into Japanese commercial, touristic and imaginative culture. Using theoretically informed case studies this book will consider both individual texts and their wider cultural contexts, translations and adaptations (such as the numerous adaptations of British children's books by Studio Ghibli and others), the dissemination of distinctive tropes such as magical schools into Japanese children's literature and popular culture, and the ways in which British children's books and their settings have become part of way that Japanese people understand Britain itself.

Japanese fiction is just now getting the attention it deserves in the English-speaking world. This study, a rich history of the evolving role of women fiction writers in Japanese, provides annotations for 300 translated works of fiction by 97 Japanese women writers from the 1890s through the 1990s. More than 600 annotations of articles, books, and reviews chronicle women writers in Japanese society, while bibliographical sources provide coverage of their lives with an immediacy not possible in general sources. An informative time line covers the key historical, political and economic events, as well as the people that shaped the contours of women's lives. An index of issues addressed in the fiction helps readers identify appropriate works dealing with subjects such as aging, the effects of the Atomic bomb, attitudes towards the family system, discrimination against "burakumin," the lifestyle of "shinjinrui" (those born after 1960), or roles of artists and women. A 100-page glossary providing definitions, background information and suggestions for future reading and research is included. Scholars, teachers, and students of Japanese literature, comparative literature, and women's studies will find this work to be an invaluable reference tool. The material will also be of interest to those in other fields such as history, sociology, education, and political science who are interested in comparing cultures and societies.

The Ivey Casebooks Series is a co-publishing partnership between SAGE Publications and the Richard Ivey School of Business, The University of Western Ontario.

In this hyperkinetic and relentlessly inventive novel, Japan’s most popular (and controversial) fiction writer hurtles into the consciousness of the West. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World draws readers into a narrative particle accelerator in which a split-brained data processor, a deranged scientist, his shockingly undemure granddaughter, Lauren Bacall, Bob Dylan, and various thugs, librarians, and subterranean monsters collide to dazzling effect. What emerges is simultaneously cooler than zero and unaffectedly affecting, a hilariously funny and deeply serious meditation on the nature and uses of the mind. From the Trade Paperback edition.

No nation was more deeply affected by America’s rise to power than Japan. The price paid to end the most intrusive reconstruction of a nation in modern history was a cold war alliance with the U.S. that ensured American dominance in the region. Kenneth Pyle offers a thoughtful history of this relationship at a time when the alliance is changing.

When I sat down to write this book, it was not an attempt to create a renowned literary work, nor was it about money or profit. I had become deeply saddened and angered, to the verge of outrage, due to the venal actions of my (elected?) government. This book speaks to the lies, hypocrisy and nefarious activities of this Bush bastard and his "colleagues-in-crime". I have no political affiliation per se. This is not about "Right" or "Left"--in this book I speak to right and wrong! This man (now there's an oxymoron) and his cronies have come to us with God on their lips and blood on their hands. I only have hopes in awakening the sleeping apathetic and complacent.