How did Japan’s most popular god develop a following around the country, and why is that god–Inari–associated with everything from farming to fire prevention? How come you see Inari worship in Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines alike? And what does all of this have to do with foxes, anyway?
The Pal dissent becomes the Pal myth. How did an obscure document from the Tokyo Trials end up front and center in nationalist discourse in Japan today?
We’re starting a look into how an Indian lawyer and judge from a relatively obscure background became a focal point of right-wing Japanese nationalism. Who was Radhabinod Pal, how did he end up a judge in the Tokyo Trials, and what led him to claim that there were no grounds to convict Japan’s leaders of any crime after World War II?
Oe Kenzaburo is about as different a writer as you can think of from Kawabata Yasunari, and yet he’s Japan’s second ever Nobel laureate in literature. What sort of concerns defined his work, and what can we learn from looking at him in conjunction with Kawabata?
We’re taking a look at the first of two Nobel laureates in literature from Japan: Kawabata Yasunari. Kawabata didn’t believe his work–focused on what he saw as a distinctly Japanese context–would translate out of the country. So what is it about his style that developed such a following?
We’re wrapping up our look at the Hatoyama political dynasty with some time on Hatoyama Iichiro (arguably Japan’s most reluctant politican) and his two sons Kunio and Yukio. Plus some thoughts on the legacy of the Hatoyama family and on dynastic electoral politics more generally.
Hatoyama Ichiro’s revenge tour culminates in finally reaching the top spot as PM and in the formation of the LDP. What does the torturous road it took to get there tell us about the man, and about the politics of his time?
Hatoyama Kazuo was a reluctant politician; you can’t say the same of his son Hatoyama Ichiro, groomed from childhood to take up the family business (and to rise to the height of cabinet minister, something his father never did). This week is all about Ichiro’s prewar career, which culminated in a shot at the top job–that was snapped away at the last moment.
We’re starting a longform look at Japan’s most prominent political dynasty: the Hatoyama family, which has been a presence in Japan’s electoral politics from the jump. Today is all about the career of family progenitor Hatoyama Kazuo, who went from son of a minor samurai to speaker of the House of Representatives, and in the offing created one of the nation’s great political dynasties.
We’re covering the art of rakugo–storytelling with a twist! How did rakugo emerge from the history of Buddhism, and what has enabled its enduring popularity where contemporary entertainments like kabuki have fallen by the wayside?