The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus

The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, founded in 2004 as Japan Focus, is an open access, peer reviewed academic journal which explores the forces shaping the Asia-Pacific region and the world. Published weekly, its coverage spans geopolitics, history, economics, society, culture, and international relations. It also offers translations of articles from Japanese, Chinese, and Korean.

As of April 2009, the journal had published more than 1,500 articles. About 4,000 subscribers receive a weekly newsletter linking to three to eight new articles. More than 350,000 articles are accessed each month by readers from 180 countries as confirmed by Clustrmap. The entire contents of the Journal are available in full-text, searchable electronic form as a fully indexed resource on the Asia-Pacific.^[1]

The Journal brings together scholarship on the modern and contemporary Asia-Pacific and contributions from contemporary journalists. A special section on economic and financial crisis in the Asia-Pacific provides an ongoing record of analysis and debate on the regional and global consequences of the descent into depression. Other major subjects addressed include the Asia-Pacific War, atrocities and reconciliation, the atomic bomb, China-Japan/US-Japan/and Japan-Korea relations, nationalisms, territorial and resource conflicts, US military bases in the Asia-Pacific, and film, literature, anime and manga in region-wide and global perspective.

Funded by no foundation or university, the Journal has sought to preserve its independence by relying on voluntary efforts by its coordinators, associates as well as by authors who choose to resist pressure to publish in paper journals in favor of the wide access, rigorous review process, and speed of publication.

The Journal has been subject to some controversy. In 2005, the site was twice subjected to attack by an unknown predator. It is suspected that articles critical of Japanese neonationalism associated with Yasukuni Shrine and the other issues pertaining to the war crimes committed during the Asia-Pacific War may have prompted the attack. The site was closed for two weeks for repair and redesign and has been fully operational thereafter.^[2]

Coordinators

• Andrew DeWit (Rikkyo University, Tokyo, Japan)
• Geoffrey Gunn (Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan)
• Laura Hein (Northwestern University, Chicago, US)
• Gavan McCormack (Australian National University, Canberra, Australia)
• R. Taggart Murphy (Tsukuba University, Tsukuba, Japan)
• David McNeill (Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan)
• Mark Selden (Cornell University, Ithaca, US)
• Yuki Tanaka (Hiroshima Peace Institute, Hiroshima, Japan)
• William Underwood (Independent Scholar, Sacramento, US)

In addition to the Coordinators, more than sixty associates write, edit and translate for the Journal.^[3]

Awards and Mentions

• The Journal received the first Ikemiyagi Shyuui Prize from the Ryukyu Shinpo, an Okinawan newspaper, in September 2008, for its coverage of the history and contemporary politics and society of Okinawa and US-Japan-Okinawa relations.^[4]

• A November 2008 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education cited The Asia Pacific Journal as an example of “innovative digital scholarship.”^[5]
• The American Research Library's report on the future of digital communication, “Current Models of Digital Scholarly Communication: Results of an Investigation Conducted by Ithaka for the Association of Research Libraries” mentioned the journal in a discussion of misperceptions about peer review processes in open access publications.^[6]

• The Best of Asian Studies WWW Monitor rates The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus with five stars on January 13, 2009.^[7]

• Articles from the Journal have been reprinted at many other sites including The History News Network, Yale Global and The Asia Times.

• The Asia-Pacific Journal’s articles have been a topic of discussion on several occasions on H-Net Japan and H-Net Asia mailing lists, used by Asia and Japan specialists in North America and globally, as well as many blogs.

References