Nichibunken Open Access (International Research Center for Japanese Studies Repository)
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<BOOK REVIEW>Mugai Nyodai : The Woman Who Opened Zen Gates, edited by the Medieval Japanese Studies Institute
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<BOOK REVIEW>Scandal in Japan : Transgression, Performance and Ritual, by Igor Prusa
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Without the Salvation of Women, No Living Faith in the Lotus Sutra : Koizumi Kikue’s Feminist Nichirenism in Wartime Japan
Full text linkThis article tells the story of Koizumi Kikue (1904–1992), an ordinary woman from the Tohoku region who became a leading figure in the East Asia League Movement (Tōa Renmei Undō), a Pan-Asianist and Nichirenist movement in wartime Japan. Koizumi developed into an independent Nichirenist thinker, writer, and activist whose faith inspired her advocacy for women’s liberation. A product of her time, she was also a radical nationalist and militarist, although these aspects were encapsulated in a larger Buddhist utopianism. The article argues that an analysis of Koizumi’s life and thought demonstrates that in contrast to its image as a closed and exclusivist movement, Nichirenism also proved open to, and functioned as a catalyst for, new ideas. Koizumi’s story shows the importance of carefully examining the lives and lived experience of practioners and less prominent figures in modern Buddhism.Early Access Publishing date: 2025/07/31journal articl
Under a Black Sun : Christian Students and Kyoto Intellectuals Challenge the Industrial Modernity of Expo ’70
Full text linkThe 1970 Japan World Exposition in Osaka is often understood as a spectacle of Japanese ultramodernity. However, recent research suggests that the Expo instead represented the rise of post-modernism in Japan. Abandoning mass politics, the Expo became a space for postmodernist political irony, such as the Black Sun Face that Okamoto Tarō directed at the Shōwa Emperor during the opening ceremony.
This article argues that both creators and protesters of the Expo challenged Western-liberal industrial modernity through the politics of diversity. At the forefront of protests against the Expo were the Protestant Christian students of the United Church of Christ in Japan, who banned the participation of their congregations in the Expo. However, the Expo’s actual planners also subverted the western-liberal industrial modernity at its heart. The Kangaerukai—comprising Kyoto University academics, many from the Institute for Research in Humanities, and the science fiction writer Komatsu Sakyō—envisioned the Expo as a festival that would focus on a “diversity” of civilizations, with the “West” at the periphery and Japan as the communicative center. By cooperating with political elites from right and left, the Kangaerukai was successful in creating a high-industrial cultural marketplace, celebrating a capitalist modernity of global diversity, and laying the groundwork for the idea of productivity through cultural self-actualization.Early Access Publishing date: 2025/07/31journal articl
Kyoto and End of Empire Migration : Repatriation and Resettlement in Kyoto City and Kyoto Prefecture
Full text linkThis article explores the socioeconomic transition of former colonial residents in postwar Japan, focusing on Kyoto City and Kyoto Prefecture (especially Maizuru City), and the role of repatriation in the process of decolonization. It probes into various aspects of repatriation including the arrival of Japanese (and departure of former colonial subjects), their transit, and resettlement. Looking beyond the moment of disembarkation this article provides for a more complete picture of the wider social implications of the mass return of Japanese from the former colonial empire. It shows that repatriation was an important issue for postwar Japan and one that was not confined merely to return; it also involved mobilizing various civil groups, black marketeering, social welfare provision, political unrest, and land reclamation projects (internal colonization). Though neither the city nor prefecture of Kyoto were among the most prominent recipients of repatriates, the importance of the Maizuru Regional Repatriation Center (the only one still open in the 1950s) means that Maizuru has become synonymous with the topic. This article argues that repatriation deeply affected the prefecture beyond Maizuru and the city of Kyoto itself, though memories of this have long since faded. The article also stresses the intersection of the repatriation of Japanese on the one hand, and the repatriation of former colonial subjects on the other, illuminating Kyoto as an important setting at the end of empire.Early Access Publishing date: 2025/04/18journal articl
梅原猛と怨霊史観
Full text link哲学者・梅原猛の学業を、ふりかえる。その仕事は多岐にわたる。ここでは、その怨霊論に注目する。日本史上の政争には、しばしば怨霊がかかわった。その鎮魂も、政治過程には影をおとしている。梅原は怨霊と鎮魂の政治史に肉迫した。歴史の見方に新機軸をもたらしている。その意義を小論は評価する。他の業績も、これとの関連で位置づける。journal articl
