In the six years New Voices has been published, the relationship between Australia and Japan has gone from strength to strength. With the recent release of the Australian Government’s Australia in the Asian Century White Paper, endeavours such as this journal serve to remind us more than ever that international friendship occurs not just on a political and economic level, but also through the exchange of ideas and thoughts about culture, history and language. Researchers from Adelaide, Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney and Wollongong have all contributed to this volume, highlighting the wide- reaching interest in Japan shown by Australian scholars.
Regular readers will note that, for the first time, all papers selected for this edition are published in both physical and electronic format. As the internet becomes our primary source of information in the academic world, the boundaries between these two formats have become more and more blurred—to the point where, from the next volume, New Voices will be published exclusively as an electronic journal.
I’d like to thank the following people for their assistance on this issue of New Voices: our Guest Editor, Dr Katrina Moore, without whose wise input the volume you are holding would not exist; members of the editorial advisory board, for kindly offering their time and expertise to review the articles; Sayuri Tokuman, Elicia O’Reilly and Matthew Todd for editorial assistance; and finally, to the seven contributors and their supervisors, whose enthusiasm and support for this project bodes well for the future of Japanese Studies in Australia.
Nao Endo
Director
The Japan Foundation, Sydney
January 2014