Japan’s suicide phenomenon has fascinated both the media and academics, although many questions and paradoxes embedded in the debate on suicide have remained unaddressed in the existing literature, including the assumption that Japan is a "Suicide Nation". This tendency causes common misconceptions about the suicide phenomenon and its features. Aiming to redress the situation, this book explores how the idea of suicide in Japan was shaped, reinterpreted and reinvented from the 1900s to the 1980s. Providing a timely contribution to the underexplored history of suicide, it also adds to the current heated debates on the contemporary way we organize our thoughts on life and death, health and wealth, on the value of the individual, and on gender. The book explores the genealogy and development of modern suicide in Japan by examining the ways in which beliefs about the nation’s character, historical views of suicide, and the cultural legitimation of voluntary death acted to influence even the scientific conceptualization of suicide in Japan. It thus unveils the way in which the language on suicide was transformed throughout the century according to the fluctuating relationship between suicide and the discourse on national identity, and pathological and cultural narratives. In doing so, it proposes a new path to understanding the norms and mechanisms of the process of the conceptualization of suicide itself. Filling in a critical gap in three particular fields of historical study: the history of suicide, the history of death, and the cultural history of twentieth century Japan, it will be of great interest to students and scholars of Japanese Studies and Japanese History.

This combination text and reader covers the most influential moral traditions of Western and Eastern cultures.

Suicide & Homicide in the 20th Century - Changes Over Time

Including Hindu, Buddhist, Chinese, African, Native American, Islamic, Jewish, and feminist philosophies, this text promotes a multicultural approach to philosophy through the reading of primary sources. In ten chapters organized by the important questions of life that philosophers seek to answer, the text presents students with a broad array of classic and contemporary readings that will foster their understanding of the world and challenge them to critically evaluate issues.

Health Inequalities in Japan brings together the expertise of Japan's leading social epidemiologists in English for the first time. Providing a balanced perspective on the determinants of wellbeing and illness, it gives a valuable insight into the epidemiological underpinnings of one of the world's healthiest populaces.

A sweeping tale of fathers and sons, of secrets and shame, and of unsung heroism.

Based on the premise that Japanese cultural nationalism has been and is a major cultural/historical force throughout the Asia Pacific this book has dual focus: Part 1 explores Japanese literature, philosophy, education, politics, diplomacy, music; Part 2 extends Japanese role to Asia Pacific at large. Part One explores significant and influential expressions of cultural nationalism in Japanese literature, philosophy, education, politics, diplomacy, music and popular culture. Part Two widens the focus to Asia Pacific at large and examines the role of Japanese cultural nationalist discourse in the island nation's relations with its regional neighbours, China being the main focus. Topics include Meiji racial theory, the varieties of Japanese imperialist ideology, nationalist attitudes towards China, Kyoto School Sinology, resistance to foreign yakozuna in sumo wrestling.

Tsugaru is located in the north-west corner of Japan's main island, Honshu. With a rugged landscape and challenging weather, it was bypassed by Japan's industrial development after World War Two. As a result, it is rich in culture and diversity, with people of many different dialects and traditions. This book serves both as an introduction and as a study on regional identity in the modern state. The interesting essays examine many aspects of Tsugaru life and culture: some history, the 'Ysugaru shamisen', the region's distinctive lacquerware, sculpture, literature ad the performing arts.

The sixteen chapters in this volume treat men as well as women, theories of sexuality as well as gender prescriptions, and same-sex as well as heterosexual relations in the period from 1868 to the present. Together, these essays construct a history informed by the idea that gender matters because it was part of the experience of people and because it often has been a central feature in the construction of modern ideologies, discourses, and institutions. Separately, each chapter examines how Japanese have (en)gendered their ideas, institutions, and society.