Japanese Studies : Changing Global Profile

Contents: Foreword. Preface I.Keynote Addresses: 1. Keynote Address – 1/Savitri Vishwanathan. 2. Keynote Address – 2/Kazuhiko Komatsu. II. Japan and the World: 3. Trends and Future Prospects of Japan Studies as an Academic Discipline/Josef A. Kyburz. 4. Soft Power as a Tool to Foster Cultural Diplomacy in India-Japan Relations/Rajaram Panda. 5. Trends in Japan’s Asia Policy/Lalima Varma. 6. Archives of Western Social Scientists in Japanese Collections, with Special Reference to the Kansai Area/Gilles Campagnolo. 7. India and Japan: In Quest of Cooperative Relations/Shanta Nedungadi Varma. 8. Changing Equations of Japan-Russia Relations – The Territorial Question vs. The Energy Issue/M.M. Kunju. 9. Korea-Japan Relations: An Overview/Vyjayanti Raghavan. III. Japanese Studies Around the Globe: 10. Japanese Studies in India: Major Trends and Challenges/ushila Narsimhan. 11. Japanese Studies in Indonesia/I Ketut Surajaya. 12. Japanese Studies and Japanese Language Teaching/Learning in Vietnam: Current Situation and New Trends in Vietnam/Tran Thi Chung Toan. 13. Japanese Studies in Hong Kong/Takamichi Tam Mito. 14. Study of Japanese Language at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan – Its Past, Present and Future Prospects/Gita A. Keeni. 15. Changing Trends in Japanese Language Education in India in the Context of Globalizaton/Neera Kongari. 16. Japanese Language Education in Eastern India – Changing Scenario with the Development of IT Industries/Purabi Gangopadhyay. IV. Japanese Society & Culture: 17. Common Traditions in Art and Culture of Japan and India/Dwijendra Nath Bakshi. 18. Significance of Japanese Art in the Modern Era/Sampa Biswas. 19. Mori Ogai & Modernization of Japanese Culture/Prem Motwani. 20. Shamanism in Shinto and Hinduism/Rajendra Tomar. 21. Women on the Threshold of Transformation: A Sociological Perspective/Supriti Sethi. 22. Cheerful Women and Discontented Men: The Impact of Consumerism and Media Images on Japanese Young Men/Satoshi Ota. 23. The Relevance of Popular Culture in Japanese Literature/Gazala Meena. 24. A Comparative Study of the Heroic Ballads of Northern Malabar and Japan/Nisha Parameswaran. V. Japanese Literature Studies: 25. Miyazawa Kenji’s Vegetarianism and Concept of Non-Violence/P.A. George. 26. The Indian Element in Akutagawa Ryunosuke’s Stories Kumo no Ito, Majutsu and Aguni no Kami/ M.V. Lakshmi. 27. Post-War Collapse of the Japanese Peerage: Dazai Osamu’s Shayo/Rupa Singh. 28. The Changing Face of Popular Modern Japanese Literature: Looking at the Akutagawa Award Winning Novels of Kanehara Hitomi, Kawakami Mieko, Wataya Risa and Others – Re-writing the Definitions of Japanese Literary Scene/Reema Singh. 29. Interpreting Abe Kobo’s Novel, The Woman in the Dunes, Through the Discourses by J. Krishnamurti/Anubhuti Chauhan. 30.Translation of Japanese Literature into Greek: Past and Present/Stylianos L. Papalexandropoulos. 31.Developments in Japanese Literature Studies in India: Recent Trends and Challenges/Unita Sachidanand. 32. Problems and Prospects of Technical Japanese Translation in India/Ashok K. Chawla. VI. Linguistics and Grammar Studies & Teaching Methodology: 33. Reflexive Coreference in Japanese and Hindi/Sushama Jain. 34. A Study on the Grammar of John Rodriguez/Saroj Kumar Chaudhuri. 35. Cultural Learning in Foreign/Second Language Learning: Trend and Prospect/Tomoyo Shibahara. 36.A Contrastive Study of Metaphorical Extension of in front of and behind in Marathi, Hindi and Japanese/Prashant Pardeshi. 37.Prospects of CALL in Japanese Language Teaching in India/T.V. Suryakant. Name Index. Subject Index.

"Japanese Studies, including Japanese language education, has shown unprecedented growth throughout the world during the last five or six decades. In developed countries, Japan is studied as a whole, laying emphasis on all aspects of Japanese Studies, and not just the language alone. At the same time, in many of the Western countries where Japanese Studies used to be at the helm of academic activities for decades, the discipline began to decline due to reasons such as the lack of interest in traditional subjects that come under the nomenclature of Japanese Studies, the overwhelming interest shown by students and researchers in the field of Chinese Studies following the rise of China as an economic super power, inadequate state support and funding, and so on. On the contrary, the Asian countries have seen a rise in the demand for Japanese Studies.

This volume gives a proper perspective of the state of Japanese Studies and Japanese language education in Asian and European countries, Japan\'s international relations, its soft culture and its influence on foreign countries, its literature and culture, and many other aspects of Japan as a nation."