Takayuki Yamamoto

This paper reports the results of an exploratory study conducted from April to July 2020 on how American immigrants, who qualify themselves as migrants from culturally diverse places, celebrate holidays and connect with the city in Tokyo, which has likewise become more culturally diverse in recent years. The report also summarizes the issues that emerged through the research.

This article examines Kosovo’s independence in the context of nationalism studies. Kosovo’s independence is characterized by its ethnic orientation, while the constitution implemented emphasized cooperation with other ethnic groups and respect for human rights. In nationalism studies, nationalism has been classified into civic and ethnic models: the former stressing the rights of the members of a nation regardless of race or ethnic frameworks, and the latter one seeing national unity as a high level of ethnic homogeneity. Starting from this classification and referring to Anthony D. Smith’s (1939–2016) concept of ethnicity and Ernest Gellner’s (1925–1995) definition of nationalism, this paper explores the possible typology of nationalism in Kosovo.

This research note provides an overview of articles listed on the homepage of the Republic of Korea Residents in Japan, introducing how Koreans in Japan experienced the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 and the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami.

This article explores Francis Bacon’s (1909–1992) pieces and the life motif depicted in them. Referring to Bacon’s methodology, past interviews, and Roland Barthes’s (1915–1980) photography, it discusses how a passion for life itself is a central theme in his paintings despite his sensational expression of violence, which certainly highlights the mortality of human beings.

This article looks at how the Air Force described in Joseph Heller’s (1923–1999) Catch-22 (1961) imposes military discipline on soldiers. Referring to Michael Foucault’s (1926–1984) theory of power, Albert Camus’s (1913–1960) discussion of absurdities, and Emile Durkheim’s (1858–1917) theory of suicide, it argues that the process regarding the protagonist Yossarian’s escape from the army symbolizes “suicide” and tries to provide a complex description of the irrational reality of wars, which eventually leads him to kill himself.

This article discusses Ken Kesey’s (1935–2001) One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962), one of the most representative countercultural novels of the 1960s in the United States. It has been pointed out that the plot of this novel reflects the spirit of the counterculture at that time. At the same time, however, the novel deals with the subject of the human rights of mentally ill people through a criticism of modern medical care. Taking this into consideration, this article mainly examines how the author described the importance of patient-centered counseling as opposed to inhumane treatments such as lobotomy, which were embodied by the mental institution in the novel.