Education About Asia: Online Archives

NEW FOR 2023: Beginning with Spring 2023, subscribers to the print edition of Education About Asia (EAA) will receive additional exclusive digital access to the current year’s three issues (spring, fall, and winter) as an online flipbook for the duration of their active subscription. Articles from the three print issues for 2023 will be uploaded to the EAA Digital archives in 2024. View the TOC and Editor’s Message for the Spring 2023 issue. Subscribe today to stay up to date with EAA!

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Book Review Essay, Resources

Japanese Education in an Era of Globalization: Culture, Politics, and Equity

by W. Lawrence Neuman

Gary DeCoker and Christopher Bjork (Editors) New York: Teachers College Press, 2013 224 pages, ISBN: 978-0807754238, Paperback Reviewed by W. Lawrence Neuman This eleven-chapter book grew from a series of meetings after the launch of the Japan Special Interest Group in the Comparative and International Education Society in 2007. It documents educational changes in Japan since the 1990 burst of their “Bubble Economy” and the onset of nearly two decades of recession. The editors highlight ...

Online Supplement, Resources

Key Issues in Asian Studies: East Asian Societies

by W. Lawrence Neuman

Editor’s note: Authors of the two most recent Key Issues in Asian Studies have each contributed an essay about their volume. For more information about this pedagogical resource, visit www.asian-studies.org/publications/KIAS.htm Few students approach their study of Asia with a blank slate; rather, most start with a mixture of stereotypes, misconceptions, and fragments of accurate information. East Asian Societies attempts to convey the excitement and significance of East Asia to American te...

Book Review Essay, Resources

Global Goes Local: Popular Culture in Asia

by W. Lawrence Neuman

Teaching Western undergraduates or other students who have very little background on Asia can be a daunting task. First, one must combat simplified stereotypes and myths to convey the great diversity/complexity of Asia. More significantly, teachers often find it difficult to discuss one specific issue detached from an entire interwoven web of Asian traditions, histo­ry, art/aesthetics, beliefs, language, social relations, and political and economic conditions. Thus, a teacher who wants to discu...

Book Review, Resources

Japan Pop! Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture

by W. Lawrence Neuman

Teachers often discover that their students are attuned to the latest trends in popular culture more than to their academic studies. By examining Japan’s popular culture, they can capitalize on this student interest, help their students to reflect on cultural concerns, and teach about contemporary Japan. Students will see that Japan has more than ninja, geisha, and samurai. There are also pop star idols, jazz musicians, and salariman. Although sumo, the tea ceremony, and cherry blossom viewing...

Book Review, Resources

Learning in Likely Places: Varieties of Apprenticeship in Japan

by W. Lawrence Neuman

Learning in Likely Places is a collection of nineteen essays (plus an introduction and epilogue) from a 1993 invitational workshop on apprenticeship education in Japan and is part of the Cambridge University Press “Learning in Doing” series. The book explores social relations at places of work/play and their influence on learning; essays divided into four sections: traditional arts, artisan apprenticeship, work and community socialization, and appropriations of cultural practice. The essays ...

Book Review, Columns

A Lateral View: Essays on Culture and Style in Contemporary Japan

by W. Lawrence Neuman

Most English-speaking travelers to Japan have probably encountered Donald Richie’s writings. Some of his other books include Taste of Japan, The Japanese Tattoo,  Japanese Cinema, Japanese Film, Films of Akira Kurosawa, Introducing Japan, Introducing Tokyo, The Temples of Kyoto, Geisha, Gangster, Neighbor and Nun, and Public People, Private People. A past film curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Richie has lived in Japan for forty-five years. As someone who lives in two cultures,...

Film Review Essay, Resources

Osaka Story

by W. Lawrence Neuman

This documentary traces the return visit of a Japanese Korean filmmaker in his thirties to his family in Osaka after a three-year absence to study in the United Kingdom. It has been shown at the 1994 Margaret Mead Film Festival and 1995 New York Asian American Film Festival, and it won the Gold Hugo at the 1994 Chicago Film Festival. By examining the intimate details of one family, we see the complexities of contemporary Japanese urban life that clearly contradict the image of a uniform, homo...

New to EAA?

Before viewing the full archives, view Editor’s Choice Articles, handpicked by EAA Editor, Lucien Ellington, which provide a good overview of EAA and introduction for new readers.