Japan-UK 150, a series of events in the UK organised to celebrate 150 years of friendship between two two countries, will run from autumn 2008 until the end of 2009. It will feature a wide range of activities designed to encourage exchange in such fields as culture, the arts, sport, education and science. This is an opportunity to gain fascinating insights into both the traditional and contemporary aspects of Japan.

+ Japan-UK 150 official site  |  + Japan-UK 150 upcoming events

Ralph Paprzycki (Research Fellow, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University) co-authored Foreign Direct Investment in Japan:Multinationals' Role in Growth and Globalization with Kyoji Fukao (Professor, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University and Director, Center for Economic Institutions at the Institute) which presents a detailed examination of recent trends of inward foreign direct investment (FDI) and their impact on the Japanese economy. This book looks at the profound changes in Japan that made this jump possible and considers foreign firms' potential contribution to productivity and overall economic growth. + buy from Cambridge University Press

Evgeny Steiner (Senior Research Fellow, Sainsbury Institute) edited two volumes of  Japanese Prints: Catalogue of the Collection of the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, the catalogue that accompanied an exhibition at the Pushkin Museum, Moscow (curated by Beata Voronova). The Japanese woodblock prints in the exhibition came primarily from the private collection of Russian naval officer Sergey Kitaev, who bought them during his trips to Japan in the 1890s. Professor Steiner edited the original manuscript, added new attributions and translations, and contributed nearly 650 new entries. + Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts

Utamaro and the Spectacle of Beauty by Julie Nelson Davies (Assistant Professor of East Asian Art in the Department of the History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania; Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellow 2002-03) makes a close study of selected print sets by Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806) and offers a new approach to issues of the status of the artist and the construction of gender, identity, sexuality and celebrity in the Edo period. Reconstructing the place of the ukiyo-e artist within the commercial print market, Dr Davies demonstrates how Utamaro's images participated in a larger spectacle of beauty in Edo. + buy from Reaktion

Ken Tadashi Oshima (Assistant Professor, University of Washington; Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellow, 2004; Handa Fellow, 2003) contributed a feature essay tracing the introduction and reception of concrete into Japan through the work of Antonin Raymond over four decades in Crafting a Modern World: The Architecture and Design of Antonin and Noemi Raymond (Princeton University Press, 2006). This book accompanied the exhibition by the same name which Dr Oshima co-curated with venues at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of California at Santa Barbara and the Kamakura Museum of Art. + buy from Princeton Architectural Press

Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere (Director, Sainsbury Institute) edited Crafting Beauty in Modern Art (British Museum Press, 2007), the catalogue that accompanied an exhibition by the same name which Dr Rousmaniere guest curated at the British Museum. This catalogue showcases contemporary crafts by Japan's Living National Treasures and presents beautiful and significant art crafts of the past fifty years. In her introductory essay, 'Continuity and Change: Understanding Japanese Art Crafts in Context', Dr Rousmaniere looks at Japan's history of craft production and the continuing dynamism and technical prowess of Japanese craft artists working today. + buy from the British Museum

Morgan Pitelka (Luce Assistant Professor of Asian Studies, Occidental College; Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellow, 2001) and John T Carpenter (Reader in the History of Japanese Art, SOAS; Head of London Office, Sainsbury Institute) both contributed essays to The Culture of Copying in Japan: Critical and Historical Perspectives (Rupert Cox, ed., Routledge 2007). In his essay, Dr Pitelka looks back to the fundamentals of "reproducing" Rikyu and Chojiro in Japanese tea culture while Dr Carpenter examines copying practices and stylistic transmission of Chinese calligraphic models in Heian Japan. The Culture of Copying is published as part of the Routledge Japan Anthropology Workshop Series. + Routledge

Dr Carpenter also wrote 'Wild Boars and Dirty Rats: Kyoka Surimono Celebrating Ichikawa Danjuro VII as Arasjishi Otokonosuke' for the new issue of Impressions (no 28, 2006-07), the journal of the Japanese Art Society of America. In his essay, Dr Carpenter takes us in a different direction with the humorous poems on surimono images of the great actor Danjuro VII paired with boars and rats (also the cover image). He conveys the nuanced layering of visual and verbal meanings that poetry and theater enthusiasts took pleasure in creating and deciphering, underscoring the extraordinary cultural sophistication of these early nineteenth-century aficionados. + Impressions

Dr Carpenter recently contributed to Orientations (vol 38, no 8) special issue on 'Treasures of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London'. In his article, 'By Brush or Block Printing: Transmitting Cultural Heritage in Pre-modern Japan', Dr Carpenter addresses the issue of why manuscript culture (painting and calligraphy) involving labour-intensive manual copying remained so pervasive in pre-modern Japan even after the technology for printing texts and mechanical reproduction of illustrations had become available and economically feasible. He also wrote in the same issue a brief introduction about the East Asian rare book and manuscript collections at SOAS.  + Orientations

Frog in the Well: Portraits of Japan by Watanabe Kazan, 1793-1841 (Columbia University Press, 2006) by renowned scholar Donald Keene is based on the Toshiba Lectures in Japanese Art Professor Keene gave in 2003. The book is a vivid account of Kazan, one of the most important intellectuals of the late Tokugawa period. From his impoverished upbringing to his tragic suicide in exile, Kazan's life and work reflected a turbulent period in Japan's history. Frog in the Well is the first full-length biography of Kazan in English, and, in telling his life's story, Professor Keene paints a fascinating portrait of the social and intellectual milieus of the late Tokugawa period. + buy from Columbia University Press

The Center for the Study of Modern Art at The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. has awarded The Phillips Book Prize, an annual award to an emerging scholar for publication of a book representing new research in modern or contemporary art, to Alicia Volk (Assistant Professor of Modern Japanese Art, Department of Art History & Archaeology, University of Maryland; Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellow 2005-06; Getty Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow 2006-07). Dr Volk's manuscript, In Pursuit of Universalism: Yorozu Tetsugoro and Japanese Modern Art, which she worked on as a Sainsbury Fellow at SOAS, will be published by the University of California Press. + The Phillips Collection | + University of Maryland

Muto Junko (Lecturer in Japanese Literature, Gakushuin University and Tamagawa University, Tokyo; Handa Fellow 2001-02) won the Kokka Prize for her book, Shoki Ukiyo-e to Kabuki: Yakusha-e ni Chumoku Shite (Early Ukiyo-e and Kabuki), in 2005. Her book was recently awarded the Fourth Annual Tokugawa Prize. The volume, which she worked on as a Handa Fellow at SOAS, includes the full version (in both Japanese and English) of a paper 'Listening to Pictures in Early Ukiyo-e: Single-sheet Prints and Printed Libretti' which she presented in the Early Ukiyo-e: New Perspectives workshop held in London in 2002. + buy from Amazon | + Kasamashoin