Japan Forum, 1989–2026: A Subject Map

An interactive map of 890 research articles in Japan Forum, the journal of the British Association for Japanese Studies, grouped into 31 subjects and traced across four periods.

Status: Beta Version: 0.3 Language: English Updated: October 2026

Open the subject map full screen

What it shows

Japan Forum has published research on Japan across the humanities and social sciences since 1989. This map places 890 of its research articles in 31 subjects, grouped into seven broad areas: history and thought, politics and international relations, economy and society, literature and arts, language and education, religion and belief, and the field of Japanese studies itself.

It shows which subjects the journal has published most in, which subjects sit close to one another, and how the mix has changed across four periods: 1989–99, 2000–09, 2010–19 and 2020–26. A Teaching tab offers 46 sets of articles to read together in a seminar, at least one for every subject, from the aftermath of 3/11 to the politics of katakana.

Explore it

The subject map needs a larger screen. Use the button above to open it full screen.

How to use it

1. Subjects: each circle is a subject, sized by its number of articles. Subjects sit close together when their articles overlap, read alike or cite each other. Click a subject for its articles, recurring topics, closest neighbours and teaching sets.
2. Articles: every article as a dot, placed by similarity of wording, with links between similar articles and citations within the journal. Click a dot for its reference, DOI, keywords and closest articles. When zoomed in, use the minimap at the bottom right to move around.
3. Time slider: drag through the years from 1989 to 2026, or press Play, to watch the journal’s map fill in.
4. Teaching: 46 reading sets, each with a reading order, a line on what each article argues, draft discussion questions and a seminar activity. Copy reading list and questions copies a set as text for a course handbook or VLE page. The questions were drafted from abstracts, so check them against the articles before use.
5. Over time, Index and Sources and method: how the subjects have shifted year by year, every entry as text from A to Z, and how the map was built.

Sources and data

Article records come from OpenAlex, not from the publisher, so the set is incomplete and uneven by year. Book reviews, notices and editorial matter are left out. Subjects were drawn up from the journal’s own keywords and abstracts and assigned by a keyword-and-text model. The third of articles the model was least sure of were read by hand, and about 190 were moved to a better subject. Articles from before about 1996 have almost no abstracts, so they were placed from titles and keywords alone. How the subjects were assigned, in the map’s opening panel, gives more detail.

How to cite

Perkins, Chris. 2026. Japan Forum, 1989–2026: A Subject Map, version 0.3. https://whitecresta.github.io/tools/japan-forum-subject-map/