Cultural Transformations of Biomedicine in Japan—Hospitalization in Contemporary Japan

1986 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Japanese Culture ◽  
Western Science ◽  
The West ◽  
Extensive Discussion ◽  
Western Modernity ◽  
Cultural Transformations ◽  
Technological Impact ◽  
Post Industrial ◽  
Scientific Technology

A widely held assumption today is that biomedicine is “scientific” and therefore “objective,” thus, “culture-free.” It epitomizes the objectivism falsely attributed to technology in general. Contemporary Japan is seen to epitomize non-Western modernity with its high development of industrialization and scientific technology. It follows then that biomedicine in Japan today should remain as such without cultural transformations. Yet, in post-industrial Japan today biomedicine takes an almost entirely different form and meaning from biomedicine practiced elsewhere, especially in Western societies such as the United States. The purpose of this paper is to describe the experience of hospitalization in contemporary Japan in order to demonstrate how Japanese culture and society have powerfully transformed the underlying concepts and practices of biomedicine, which was originally introduced from the West and has been highly acclaimed by the Japanese as the epitome of superior Western science and technology. Due to space limitations, however, it will not be possible to engage in an extensive discussion of theories about technological impact, or issues involved in the broader theoretical concern variously referred to as “modernization,” “industrialization,” “rationalization,” “secularization,” etc.

Autoexotic Literary Encounters between Meiji Japan and the West: Sōseki Natsume's “The Tower of London” (1905) and Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan (1904)

PMLA ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 132 (2) ◽  
pp. 447-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi Charlotte Fukuzawa
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Japanese Culture ◽  
Edo Period ◽  
The West ◽  
Meiji Japan ◽  
Western Imperialism ◽  
Meiji Era ◽  
Travel Writings

As Roland Barthes's epoch-making essay Empire of Signs suggests, in a slightly orientalist tone itself, modern japanese culture is a fascinating kaleidoscope of Eastern and Western cultures, but at the same time a strong purism is inherent in its aestheticized nationalism. In this essay, I offer a comparative literary analysis of select travel writings that emerge out of Japanese-European encounters in the Meiji era (1868–1912) to show the cultural dynamism of the time, after the Edo period (1603–1852), when Japan first opened its borders to the West. My analysis of Japan of that time as an Eastern-Western contact zone is based on Homi Bhabha's notion of cultural hybridity and Mary Louise Pratt's understanding of a cultural encounter in an asymmetrical power constellation. Japan has never been a colony, escaping Western imperialism through the (sakoku; “closed country”) policy of the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, who banned all Christian missionaries and Western foreigners from the insular empire. In the Meiji modernization in 1868, the old samurai elites imported select reforms from Western Europe, notably from England, France, and Germany, to Japan. This is why Yōichi Komori claimed that Japan is a “self-colonized” () culture (Posutokoroniaru 8). Through the Meiji elite's adoption of certain modern ways from Germany, France, England, and the United States, an “imitative modernity” came into being.

Gerald H. Thayer's ornithological work in St Vincent and the Grenadines, Lesser Antilles

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
James W. Wiley
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
West Indies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Lesser Antilles ◽  
American Museum ◽  
The West ◽  
Comparative Zoology ◽  
North And South America ◽  
North And South

Gerald Handerson Thayer (1883–1939) was an artist, writer and naturalist who worked in North and South America, Europe and the West Indies. In the Lesser Antilles, Thayer made substantial contributions to the knowledge and conservation of birds in St Vincent and the Grenadines. Thayer observed and collected birds throughout much of St Vincent and on many of the Grenadines from January 1924 through to December 1925. Although he produced a preliminary manuscript containing interesting distributional notes and which is an early record of the region's ornithology, Thayer never published the results of his work in the islands. Some 413 bird and bird egg specimens have survived from his work in St Vincent and the Grenadines and are now housed in the American Museum of Natural History (New York City) and the Museum of Comparative Zoology (Cambridge, Massachusetts). Four hundred and fifty eight specimens of birds and eggs collected by Gerald and his father, Abbott, from other countries are held in museums in the United States.

Mafias on the Move

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federico Varese
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Organized Crime ◽  
The United States ◽  
The West ◽  
Market Expansion ◽  
The North ◽  
Economic Transformations ◽  
At Will

Organized crime is spreading like a global virus as mobs take advantage of open borders to establish local franchises at will. That at least is the fear, inspired by stories of Russian mobsters in New York, Chinese triads in London, and Italian mafias throughout the West. As this book explains, the truth is more complicated. The author has spent years researching mafia groups in Italy, Russia, the United States, and China, and argues that mafiosi often find themselves abroad against their will, rather than through a strategic plan to colonize new territories. Once there, they do not always succeed in establishing themselves. The book spells out the conditions that lead to their long-term success, namely sudden market expansion that is neither exploited by local rivals nor blocked by authorities. Ultimately the inability of the state to govern economic transformations gives mafias their opportunity. In a series of matched comparisons, the book charts the attempts of the Calabrese 'Ndrangheta to move to the north of Italy, and shows how the Sicilian mafia expanded to early twentieth-century New York, but failed around the same time to find a niche in Argentina. The book explains why the Russian mafia failed to penetrate Rome but succeeded in Hungary. A pioneering chapter on China examines the challenges that triads from Taiwan and Hong Kong find in branching out to the mainland. This book is both a compelling read and a sober assessment of the risks posed by globalization and immigration for the spread of mafias.

Problems of military-political interaction between the countries of the West and Central Asia at the turn of the XX–XXI centuries

2020 ◽  
pp. 27-33
Author(s):  
Boris G. Koybaev
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Bases ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
The West ◽  
Regional Environment ◽  
Western Influence ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
Political Interaction ◽  
The Military

Central Asia in recent history is a vast region with five Muslim States-new actors in modern international relations. The countries of Central Asia, having become sovereign States, at the turn of the XX–XXI centuries are trying to peaceful interaction not only with their underdeveloped neighbors, but also with the far-off prosperous West. At the same time, the United States and Western European countries, in their centrosilic ambitions, seek to increase their military and political presence in Central Asia and use the military bases of the region’s States as a springboard for supplying their troops during anti-terrorist and other operations. With the active support of the West, the Central Asian States were accepted as members of the United Nations. For monitoring and exerting diplomatic influence on the regional environment, the administration of the President of the Russian Federation H. W. Bush established U.S. embassies in all Central Asian States. Turkey, a NATO member and secular Islamic state, was used as a lever of indirect Western influence over Central Asian governments, and its model of successful development was presented as an example to follow.

The Rise and Fall of Great Powers

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geir Lundestad
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Foreseeable Future ◽  
The West ◽  
Economic Modernization

There are no laws in history. Realists, liberals, and others are both right and wrong. Although no one can be certain that military incidents may not happen, for the foreseeable future China and the United States are unlikely to favor major war. They have cooperated well for almost four decades now. China is likely to continue to focus on its economic modernization. It has far to go to measure up to the West. The American-Chinese economies are still complementary. A conflict with the United States or even with China’s neighbors would have damaging repercussions for China’s economic goals. The United States is so strong that it would make little sense for China to take it on militarily. There are also other deterrents against war, from nuclear weapons to emerging norms about international relations. It is anybody’s guess what will happen after the next few decades. History indicates anything is possible.

The Proximity of Other Skins

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Celine Parreñas Shimizu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Korea ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
The Other ◽  
The West ◽  
Pain And Suffering ◽  
The Spectator ◽  
Existing Frames ◽  
The Voice

Transnational films representing intimacy and inequality disrupt and disgust Western spectators. When wounded bodies within poverty entangle with healthy wealthy bodies in sex, romance and care, fear and hatred combine with desire and fetishism. Works from the Philippines, South Korea, and independents from the United States and France may not be made for the West and may not make use of Hollywood traditions. Rather, they demand recognition for the knowledge they produce beyond our existing frames. They challenge us to go beyond passive consumption, or introspection of ourselves as spectators, for they represent new ways of world-making we cannot unsee, unhear, or unfeel. The spectator is redirected to go beyond the rapture of consuming the other to the rupture that arises from witnessing pain and suffering. Self-displacement is what proximity to intimate inequality in cinema ultimately compels and demands so as to establish an ethical way of relating to others. In undoing the spectator, the voice of the transnational filmmaker emerges. Not only do we need to listen to filmmakers from outside Hollywood who unflinchingly engage the inexpressibility of difference, we need to make room for critics and theorists who prioritize the subjectivities of others. When the demographics of filmmakers and film scholars are not as diverse as its spectators, films narrow our worldviews. To recognize our culpability in the denigration of others unleashes the power of cinema. The unbearability of stories we don’t want to watch and don’t want to feel must be borne.

The Sino–Russian Strategic Partnership

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul J. Bolt ◽  
Sharyl N. Cross
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Strategic Partnership ◽  
Relative Power ◽  
Mutual Respect ◽  
Major Power ◽  
The West ◽  
The World ◽  
Key Players ◽  
Common Interests ◽  
The Relationship

The Conclusion reviews the volume’s major themes. Russia and China have common interests that cement their partnership, and are key players in shaping the international order. Both seek better relations with the West, but on the basis of “mutual respect” and “equality.” While the relationship has grown deeper, particularly since 2014, China and Russia are partners but not allies. Thus, their relationship is marked by burgeoning cooperation, but still areas of potential competition and friction. Russia in particular must deal with China’s growing relative power at the same time that it is isolated from the West. While the Russian–Chinese relationship creates challenges for the United States and Europe and a return of major power rivalry, there is also room for cooperation in the strategic triangle comprising China, Russia, and the West. Looking ahead, the world is in a period of dramatic transition.

scholarly journals Environmental justice, settler colonialism, and more-than-humans in the occupied West Bank: An introduction

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-27
Author(s):  
Irus Braverman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Environmental Justice ◽  
West Bank ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
The United States ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
The West ◽  
The Core ◽  
Waste Concrete

Our special issue provides a first-of-its kind attempt to examine environmental injustices in the occupied West Bank through interdisciplinary perspectives, pointing to the broader settler colonial and neoliberal contexts within which they occur and to their more-than-human implications. Specifically, we seek to understand what environmental justice—a movement originating from, and rooted in, the United States—means in the context of Palestine/Israel. Moving beyond the settler-native dialectic, we draw attention to the more-than-human flows that occur in the region—which include water, air, waste, cement, trees, donkeys, watermelons, and insects—to consider the dynamic, and often gradational, meanings of frontier, enclosure, and Indigeneity in the West Bank, challenging the all-too-binary assumptions at the core of settler colonialism. Against the backdrop of the settler colonial project of territorial dispossession and elimination, we illuminate the infrastructural connections and disruptions among lives and matter in the West Bank, interpreting these through the lens of environmental justice. We finally ask what forms of ecological decolonization might emerge from this landscape of accumulating waste, concrete, and ruin. Such alternative visions that move beyond the single axis of settler-native enable the emergence of more nuanced, and even hopeful, ecological imaginaries that focus on sumud, dignity, and recognition.

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