Japan in the Heisei Era (1989–2019)

Noriko Murai is an Associate Professor of Art History at Sophia University, where she teaches modern and contemporary Japanese art and visual culture. Her publication in English includes Journeys East: Isabella Stewart Gardner and Asia (2009) and Inventing Asia: American Perspectives Around 1900 (2014). Jeff Kingston is a Professor of History and Director of Asian Studies at Temple University, Japan. He is the author and editor of a dozen books on contemporary Japan and Asia including Japan’s Quiet Transformation (2004), Contemporary Japan (2011), and Critical Issues in Contemporary Japan (2014). Tina Burrett is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Faculty of Liberal Arts, Sophia University. She is the co-editor of Press Freedom in Contemporary Asia (2020) and the author of Television and Presidential Power in Putin’s Russia (2013).

Part 1: Symbol Emperor 1. The People's Imperial Couple 2. Contemporary Goshin’ei: The Emperor, Art, and the Anus Part 2: Government and Politics 3. The Rightward Shift of Japanese Politics: Interest, Reform, and Identity 4. Prime Ministers, Power and Leadership in Heisei Japan 5. Heisei Okinawa: What Changed? 6. The Fight for Open Government in the Heisei Era Part 3: Civil Society 7. Civil Society and Neoliberalism: Heisei’s Historic Convergence 8. Still Half Free: The Japanese Media in the Heisei Era Part 4: Economy and Work 9. The Heisei Economy: Explaining the Lost Decades 10. Precaritization of Work in Japan 11. Japan's Immigration in the Heisei Era: Population, Policy and the Ethno-nationalist Dilemma Part 5: Diversity 12. Women’s Leadership and Gender Equality 13. Preserving the Status Quo: Japan’s Laws and Policies on Ethnic and Sexual Minorities 14. From Tiramisù to #MeToo: Triangulations of Sex, Gender and Sexuality in Heisei Japan Part 6: Religion 15. Shinto During the Heisei Era 16. The Life and Death of a Heisei Religious Movement: What the Aum Shinrikyō□Affair Revealed about Japanese Society Part 7: Cool Japan? 17. Heisei High Architecture as Soft Power 18. The Evangelion Boom: The Explosion of Fan Markets and Lifestyles in Heisei Japan 19. The Genealogy of Kawaii Part 8: Multivoiced Narratives 20. A False Peace: Literature in the Age of Heisei 21. Cinema’s Uneasy Social Critique: The Heisei Era Onscreen Part 9: History and Memory 22. Heisei Historiography: Academic History and Public Commemoration in Japan, 1990-2020 23. Implicated Photographs: Wartime Postmemory and the Photographic Unconsciousness in the Heisei Era 24. The Loss of Nostalgia, not The Nostalgia of Loss: Or, What Happens in Heisei Stays in Heisei 25. The Tumultuous Finale: 2009-2019