Kyoto Journal is Back, with New Digital Issue

Via our friends and colleagues at KJ:

Kyoto Journal is Back, with New Digital Issue

With release of our 77th issue, the long-established all-volunteer-based Kyoto Journal is back in production!

Our transition from print to digital publication (and a total rebuild of our website) has been a challenging and time-consuming process. This issue puts KJ finally back on track as a quarterly melding of wide-ranging “insights from Asia,” noted for long-shelf-life content and distinctive design (now iPad-friendly too!)

Based in Kyoto, KJ’s network of contributors extends far afield: the 22 articles in this issue of over 200 pages take readers beyond the ancient capital to Hiroshima, Tokyo and Fukushima, to Korea, China, Nepal, Tibet, India, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines, delving into film and fiction, poetry, “off-the-beaten-track” travels, craft and calligraphy, architectural and archaeological investigations, yoga, post-disaster initiatives, and an informative reviews section.

Featured articles include:

• “Strong Children,” on a post-quake Tohoku support project, by Geoff Read

• “Engineering the Japanese Islands,” an interview with environmental historian Brett Walker, by Winifred Bird

• “Contested Terrain: Development, Identity and the Destruction of an Ancient City in Afghanistan,” a first-hand report by Isaac Blacksin

• “Between Darkness and Light: Reflections on Hindu India,” by Vinayak Bharne

• “Okamoto Taro; Nuclear Proliferation, and the “Myth of Tomorrow,” by Donald C. Wood and Akiko Takahashi“

• Tsa’lam: the Nomadic Route of Salt,” a yak-trail traced by expeditioner Jeff Fuchs

• Illuminating profiles of contemporary filmmakers Amar Kanwar, Koreeda Hirokazu, and Asoka Handagama

KJ was highly fortunate to have been supported by Heian Bunka Center from 1986 – 2010. The magazine is now a fully independent non-profit. Our next concern is to expand our subscriber base. Bandwidth and monthly charges for digital publication webtools aren’t cheap; we need to cover ongoing production expenses, hoping also to produce occasional specially-themed publications in print. Without a sponsor, we now depend on our readers — the KJ community — for vital support.

KJ is not a business. Neither staff nor contributors receive any payment.  We believe that KJ fulfils an important role as a place for non-mainstream material that digs deeper into the fertile soil of Asian experience. With the new potential of our website and digital format, we are eager to see KJ’s ongoing evolution, and to welcome new readers and subscribers.

Downloads of individual issues cost 1,200 yen (US$12.50). A full year’s subscription (4 issues) is an affordable 4,000 yen (about US$42). Check out our sampler of 77, and please sign up (or take out a gift subscription!), to help us keep on producing KJ.

We also have a newsletter – please sign up on our homepage and receive a full-length download of a classic issue, KJ 73, for free.



Visit the KJ website for more: http://kyotojournal.org/