One of my goals for 2021 is to publish my first academic paper in Japanese, targeting Minami Ajia Kenkyuu (南アジア研究), a reputable South Asian studies journal. Currently, I write contemporary academic histories in English and am experimenting with arguments and word counts tailored to different formats and scales: blog posts, journal articles, conference presentations, social media outlets and soon single monographs. Towards my goal of expanding my audience to English and/or Japanese speakers, bookstores are a great place to experience how the print industry has learned to co-exist and even flourish alongside new audiovisual information presentation methods of YouTube or Instagram. It highlights what really draws people to the written word in the new information economy.
As I was browsing a bookshop on the top floor of a department store in Tokyo, it occurred to me that I feel a different aura in Japanese bookshops browsing Barnes and Nobles in the United States or Waterstones in Britain. It felt like the books sold on the shelves existed alongside popular YouTube channels. Let me introduce five books that were primarily interesting for their subject matter, but two by the same author were especially fascinating also for their method of delivering information. Translations are mine.
山崎 圭一 [Yamazaki Keiichi[1]] 『一度読んだら絶対に忘れない世界史の教科書』『一度読んだら絶対に忘れない日本史の教科書』[‘Once you read, you never forget: World History Textbook’ and ‘Japanese History Textbook’]
Yamazaki Keiichi is currently a high school educator. He started a YouTube channel in 2016 called ‘Historia Mundi’, after receiving many requests from students to re-explain his history lectures.[2] The format is simply a blackboard with a map and explaining key events simply in a recorded video.
His two books are meant as a counterpart synthesising and summarising the ‘Historia Mundi’ YouTube lectures. Visually, they bridge the line between a modern high school history text and business books in Japan. Muted colors are used to differentiate different eras, and the text is rarely longer than a page without signposting visual elements, maps or tables.
黒木 登志夫 [Kuroki Toshio] 『新型コロナの科学』[‘The Science of COVID-19’]
I am just getting into Japanese medical histories, such as the research papers of Akihito Suzuki[3], and wanted to read a medical specialist's interpretation of COVID as the pandemic is still happening.[4] It’s an interesting parallel to US doctor’s accounts of AIDS in the early 1980s.
荒木 光弥 [Mitsuya Akira[5]] 『国際協力の戦後史』 [‘The post-war history of international cooperation’] .
This is an edited series of oral history interviews with key persons in Japan’s post-war development agencies, including JICA whose Ichigaya Library I’ve visited. I wanted this book in my arsenal to further develop my Japanese involvement in India’s 1991 liberalisation negotiations article. I also wanted to learn how to edit oral histories in interesting ways to a general business audience.
小松 ひかる・ジェレミーラプリー [Komatsu Hikaru and Jeremy Rappleye] 『日本の教育はダメじゃない』 [‘Japan’s education system is not bad’].[6]
This was for personal interest, as my father was talking recently about why I wasn’t sent to a Japanese school. As I have people around me who are experiencing the Japanese education system in ways I was never able to, it’s a fascinating read.
The digital revolution has disrupted the traditional publishing sector worldwide. But it’s too easy to say there is no room anymore for print, text or analog information. There is always room for creative and inclusive ways of reaching new audiences and offering your hard-earned interpretation of new data. In any case, it’s fun to experiment with ways to make research appealing to new audiences.
It’s also a great chance to practice reading Japanese names, which is still a learning process for me. Here's to happy reading!
[1] <https://www.kouenirai.com/profile/10148>. [2] ‘Historia Mundi’ <https://www.youtube.com/c/HistoriaMundi/videos>. [3] 鈴木 晃仁 「病院での臨床教育と医学の長期的な転換」適塾(46), (2013), 30-41. [4] <https://www.kinokuniya.co.jp/f/dsg-01-9784121026255>. [5] Editor of 国際開発ジャーナル。<https://www.hanmoto.com/bd/isbn/9784492062159>. [6] <https://www.hanmoto.com/bd/isbn/9784480073716>.