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Describes the trends, diversity and differences in Japanese and British geographical studies.
Describes the trends, diversity and differences in Japanese and British geographical studies.
The first broad study of Japanese mandalas to appear in a Western language, this volume interprets mandalas as sanctified realms where identification between the human and the sacred occurs. The author investigates eighth- to seventeenth-century paintings from three traditions: Esoteric Buddhism, Pure Land Buddhism, and the kami-worshipping (Shinto) tradition. It is generally recognized that many of these mandalas are connected with texts and images from India and the Himalayas. A pioneering theme of this study is that, in addition to the South Asian connections, certain paradigmatic Japanese mandalas reflect pre-Buddhist Chinese concepts, including geographical concepts. In convincing and lucid prose, ten Grotenhuis chronicles an intermingling of visual, doctrinal, ritual, and literary elements in these mandalas that has come to be seen as characteristic of the Japanese religious tradition as a whole. This beautifully illustrated work begins in the first millennium B.C.E. in China with an introduction to the Book of Documents and ends in present-day Japan at the sacred site of Kumano. Ten Grotenhuis focuses on the Diamond and Womb World mandalas of Esoteric Buddhist tradition, on the Taima mandala and other related mandalas from the Pure Land Buddhist tradition, and on mandalas associated with the kami-worshipping sites of Kasuga and Kumano. She identifies specific sacred places in Japan with sacred places in India and with Buddhist cosmic diagrams. Through these identifications, the realm of the buddhas is identified with the realms of the kami and of human beings, and Japanese geographical areas are identified with Buddhist sacred geography. Explaining why certain fundamental Japanese mandalas look the way they do and how certain visual forms came to embody the sacred, ten Grotenhuis presents works that show a complex mixture of Indian Buddhist elements, pre-Buddhist Chinese elements, Chinese Buddhist elements, and indigenous Japanese elements.
Spanning the fields of book history, travel literature, map history, and visual culture, Printing Landmarks provides a new perspective on Tokugawa-period culture. Robert Goree draws on diverse archival and scholarly sources to explore why meisho zue enjoyed widespread and enduring popularity.
D. R. Howland explores China’s representations of Japan in the changing world of the late nineteenth century and, in so doing, examines the cultural and social borders between the two neighbors. Looking at Chinese accounts of Japan written during the 1870s and 1880s, he undertakes an unprecedented analysis of the main genres the Chinese used to portray Japan—the travel diary, poetry, and the geographical treatise. In his discussion of the practice of “brushtalk,” in which Chinese scholars communicated with the Japanese by exchanging ideographs, Howland further shows how the Chinese viewed the communication of their language and its dominant modes—history and poetry—as the textual and cultural basis of a shared civilization between the two societies. With Japan’s decision in the 1870s to modernize and westernize, China’s relationship with Japan underwent a crucial change—one that resulted in its decisive separation from Chinese civilization and, according to Howland, a destabilization of China’s worldview. His examination of the ways in which Chinese perceptions of Japan altered in the 1880s reveals the crucial choice faced by the Chinese of whether to interact with Japan as “kin,” based on geographical proximity and the existence of common cultural threads, or as a “barbarian,” an alien force molded by European influence. By probing China’s poetic and expository modes of portraying Japan, Borders of Chinese Civilization exposes the changing world of the nineteenth century and China’s comprehension of it. This broadly appealing work will engage scholars in the fields of Asian studies, Chinese literature, history, and geography, as well as those interested in theoretical reflections on travel or modernism.
In a globalized market where the emerging workforce will increasingly travel within their nations and abroad for work opportunities, it is valuable to learn about the international education system and practices, to assess the competition. For example, annual comparison of student performance is measured across math and science subjects globally. What is not well known is how geography educational systems compare around the world and how student success in this subject translates to learning in other courses or employment after graduation. The importance of geography in our personal, professional, and civic lives is transparent when one considers how finding one’s way with a map, understanding of world cultures, or identifying spatial patterns of disease spread might influence the decisions we make. Written for a global audience, this is the first English publication on geography education in Japan, addressing some fundamental questions. What is the nature of the geography educational systems in Japan? How does the focus on content and skills in Japanese schools differ from that in other countries? This book includes 25 authors from diverse geography instruction and research experiences, making it an authoritative publication on Japan’s geography education system. The contribution of this book to the larger geography educational community is sharing the key strengths, concerns, and future of this school subject in English, where previously most publications were in Japanese. It will be a useful source for researchers and teachers to understand Japan’s evolving geography instruction in the past, present, and future. The 21 chapters are organized into themes, beginning with an overview of the geography education system in Japan, followed by chapters that deal with regional geography and fieldwork, teacher training, geography education’s contributions to society, and a comparative study of geography education across multiple countries. The book ends with a vision of geography education in the future.
This book clarifies the geography of the peripheral Japanese islands from a variety of angles. The islands are distributed in the tropical and cool temperate zones, and the most distant inhabited islands are more than 1,000 km from the mainland. In the past, they were Japan's frontier, close to neighboring countries. However, during Japan's modernization process, the islands were positioned as backward regions, supplying food, resources, and labor. Today, the islands are considered to be on the periphery of Japan, with lifestyles different from those of the mainland. The islands are also getting attention as sightseeing locales and emigration regions attracting those who prefer country life—an image of the islands that has been created by the romanticized gaze from the Japanese mainland. The authors describe the various forms of the outlying Japanese islands and at the same time discover their common regional characteristics, as defined by the view from the mainland.
The intent in compiling this bibliography was to bring the attention of Western geographers and other interested scholars those geographical writings of the Japanese which have appeared in the 20th century.
This book discusses modern aspects of Japanese religion in terms of cultural geography. To understand the function of religion, it is essential to examine it in the context of local societies. One of the distinguishing characteristics of Japanese religion is its diversity; indeed, it is often remarked that “Japan is a museum of religions.” In this work, the author clarifies some geographical aspects of the complex situation of Japanese religion. Chapter 1 discusses the trend of geographical studies of religion in Japan, of which four types can be identified. Chapter 2 focuses on certain characteristics of Japanese religious traditions by discussing tree worship and the landscape of sacred places. Chapter 3 clarifies regional divisions in the catchment areas of Japanese Shintoism by analyzing the distribution of certain types of believers. The author discusses two case studies: the Kasama Inari Shrine and the Kanamura Shrine. Chapter 4 discusses some modern aspects of sacred places and tourism through two case studies. The first part of the chapter focuses on changes in the types of businesses at the Omotesando of the Naritasan Shinshoji-Monzenmachi, and the following sections examine the revitalization of the local community through the promotion of religious tourism.