This paper will examine the cultural paradox of modern Japan, focusing on the views of civilization and Otherness during the period of the Great Japanese Empire (1868-1945). I will look at modern Japanese views of civilization and how these views reflected modern Japan’s perceptions of its major Others: the West, China and the South Seas.2 The reason I write in terms of the “paradox” of modern ...

Gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD) is “a condition which develops when the reflux of stomach contents causes troublesome symptoms (i.e., at least two heartburn episodes per week) and/or complications” (Vakil et al 2006) and represents one of the fastest growing disease affecting the alimentary tract. Recently studies on the epidemiology of GERD demonstrating that GERD is a highly prevalent...

The link between Islam and terrorism became a central media concern following September 11, resulting in new rounds of "culture talk. This talk has turned religious experience into a political category, differentiating 'good Muslims" from "bad Muslims, rather than terrorists from civilians. The implication is undisguised: Whether in Afghanistan, Palestine, or Pakistan, Islam must be quarantined...

Historians of discourse formation have demonstrated how, in the decades following the Risorgimento, Italy was fashioned as the internal ‘other’ of a new, industrial civilization that had surpassed the Mediterranean one of old. In the geopolitical map of Western Europe, Italy occupied the most distant and different territory; its proximity to Africa and the Near East, its heterogeneous racial ma...