Old Myths, New Myths: Problems of Informed Punditry
The Asia/Pacific Journal, aka Japan Focus, has a fascinating interview with Heinrich Reinfried, Senior Lecturer in East Asian Studies at the University St. Gallen, Switzerland, conducted by a Swiss...
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Credentialism and Other Modern Traditions
The Japan Times article on Japan’s application to UNESCO to have 和食 [washoku, Japanese cuisine] declared an internationally recognized “intangible cultural asset” is a fantastic display of modern...
View ArticleMoving Migration Into History
Via Aaron Bady, I saw a wonderful article by Imke Sturm-Martin about the challenges of integrating migration history into the mainstream of European historical consciousness.1 Europe is not the only...
View ArticleDiaspora And Diplomatic Communities Memorialize Conflict
A memorial plaque was dedicated in a park in Palisades Park, New Jersey in 2010 which reads In Memory of the more than 200,000 women and girls who were abducted by the armed forces of the government of...
View ArticleSenkaku Islands: New Sources, New Clarity?
NYT reporter Nick Kristof brought in a guest blogger, Han-Yi Shaw of Taiwan, to examine some new mid-Meiji documentation about Japan’s relationship with the contested Senkaku/Daiyou islands. The core...
View ArticleScience, Social Science, and Pseudoscience of Diet/Culture Thesis
Eminent food historian Rachel Laudan alerted me recently to the existence of new scholarship, cultural psychology, giving support to the idea that different basic grains gave rise to different cultures...
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