Informasia

*** NOTE: Speakers are needed for 2026.
Please contact Patricia Yarrow at: yarrowp@gmail.com
NEXT INFORMASIA LECTURE
Informasia #9, September 15, 2025
Shaun O’Dwyer + Xiaoyang Hao and Kyle Shuttleworth
"Confucianism at War 1931 - 1945"
Vimeo video: will be posted September 16
Audio: Will be posted September 16Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/6338045613
Informasia Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/307236340460985
Professor Shaun O'Dwyer will introduce the book, and the two speakers.
E-mail: Shaun O'Dwyer odwyer.richard .shau n.228@m.kyushu-u.ac.jp
Xiaoyang Hao, assistant professor, Kyushu University
Topic: The Shibunkai’s ConfucianDiplomacy and the Flight of Kong Decheng
Kyle Michael James Shuttleworth,assistant professor. Akita International University
Topic: Confucianism,Nationalism, and Nihonjinron in Watsuji Tetsurō’s Climate
Description
This is the first book-length study of wartime Confucianism in any language, providing new insights into key developments in Confucian thought and ideology in East Asia in the 1930s and 1940s.
In standard scholarship on the ideologies driving nation-building and imperialism during the era of Japanese expansionism that began in 1931, Confucianism is rarely referenced and relegated to the background. This volume brings together the work of scholars who argue for a revision of this standard view. It includes studies of Japanese, Chinese, colonial Manchurian, and Korean intellectuals and reformers who contributed to expansionist, collaborationist, or nationalist ideology-building during the war. Contrary to the assumption that Confucianism was an anachronism rendered irrelevant by the Westernizing political reforms and revolutions of the early twentieth century, the chapters in this book show that Confucianism remained a potent and also contested cultural resource for promoting national cohesion, war mobilization and expansionism in East Asia between the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and the end of World War II in 1945.
This book will appeal to scholars and students of Asian studies, nationalism studies, postcolonial studies, religious studies, and philosophy. In particular, it is essential reading for those interested in nationalism and modern Confucian thought in East Asia.
Available in hardback and e-copy:
ISBN 9781032619316
308 pages.
Published December 16, 2024 by Routledge.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NEWS
The news is that I am focused this summer 2025 on mastering this Informasia website.
Right now, I am combing through the current layout and updating it.
Once everything is order in a few days, I have arranged to contact the fine Support team at Strikingly, Informasia's web host.
We will discuss the correct template going forward. A reasonable fee is involved.
The current template is a long page with sections.
That must change to individual pages. No more endless scrolling!
Actually, I am excited to have reached this stage after four years.
Looks like Informasia has a community and continuity!
August 4, 2025 /Patricia Yarrow
BOOKS
Books by former Informasia lecturers. Updating goal: Display books in order of Informasia presentations, and information on the publication source. In progress as of August 2025/PY
ARTICLES

George Sioris, "The Silk and the Gold: Correcting the Course of Asian Studies", 2024
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GohZo59InVYEU3E5cPgSw4dg1WU5LxmU/view?usp=sharing
George Sioris, "The Creation of the World, Martyrdom et.al." 2025
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uzoYGXRpzM5xYEUkhcyKzdrld3EvnCiv/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=105775447281122203523&rtpof=true&sd=true
*Both articles are temporarily stored on Patricia Yarrow's Shared Google Drive.
There is a way to add the document, which I will attend to soon. August 2025/PY

*
Contact Us
Would you like to join Informasia's e-mail list? It is easy and there are just a few notices.
Every month, there are three short Reminders of the approaching lecture of the month, and a longer follow-up Report shortly after the meeting.
Any comments and questions are most welcome. This website is very much in progress as of August 2025. /Patricia Yarrow
Name

Email

Message

Comment
Support Informasia by inviting friends to join our Zoom meetings, always on the third Monday of every month.
Check us out on Facebook for announcements of the next meeting, as an "Event".
Informasia Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/307236340460985
Other Social Media (SMS) under developement. We do have a bluesky account, which is not active yet.
More thoughts on this soon.
Any suggestions, most welcome. Please send them to Patricia Yarrow at yarrowp@gmail.com
*
*
*
*
ABOUT INFORMASIA

Informasia launch
May 2020
Chaos ruled and all compass points were lost in the onslaught of the newly arrived worldwide COVID pandemic. In April, as all university classes moved to Zoom, Patricia Yarrow was gazing blankly from her Ryogoku (Tokyo) veranda. Bereft of meeting companions, academically informative monthly lectures, and friendly discussions, inspiration struck on that spring day. “We could do this on Zoom!”
A flurry of messaging later, a core group of eight castaways met (safely on Zoom) on 25 May 2020 to toss ideas around. Alex Byrne dreamed up the name “Informasia”, and the vision began coming into focus. Our Informasia ship cast off with an stalwart crew for shores unknown. Since then, our mailing list has grown from 10 to nearly 400. Our Facebook page counts some 280 friends.
Informasia community
Thanks to all the friends and colleagues of Informasia in Japan, Asia, Singapore, Maylasia, Australia, New Zealand, throughout the UK and Europe, and the hardy east coast of the USA, our Zoom community, launched June 2020. It has grown steadily ever since. Presentations in 2022 ranged from deeply academic translations of Korea, Japan, China, to research in progress, alarming lockdowns in Shanghai, to tranquil musings on cherry blossoms and ethereal meditations on life between death, with a helping of the foreign politics between China and Japan. If lectures were flowers, our Informasia bouquet would create quite the splashy ikebana display.

The Informasia logo comes to us from designer Ritsuko Lynch, upon the recommendation of Alex Byrne. She is based in Santa Monica, California, and can be reached at: https://en.99designs.jp/profiles/2313262
Join Informasia's e-mail list
Every month's lecture includes three brief pre-meeting reminders.
New addition: The Vimeo link to the lecture presentation and discussion will be sent the day after the lecture.
A newsy follow-up Report completes the set a few days later.
Name

Email

Comment

This website is under development. The Strikingly support team is assisting me as of August 2025./PY

Please contact Patricia Yarrow at: yarrowp@gmail.com

"Confucianism at War 1931 - 1945"

Audio: Will be posted September 16Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/6338045613

Informasia Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/307236340460985

Professor Shaun O'Dwyer will introduce the book, and the two speakers.

E-mail: Shaun O'Dwyer odwyer.richard.shaun.228@m.kyushu-u.ac.jp

Xiaoyang Hao, assistant professor, Kyushu University

Topic: The Shibunkai’s ConfucianDiplomacy and the Flight of Kong Decheng

Kyle Michael James Shuttleworth,assistant professor. Akita International University

Topic: Confucianism,Nationalism, and Nihonjinron in Watsuji Tetsurō’s Climate

Description

This is the first book-length study of wartime Confucianism in any language, providing new insights into key developments in Confucian thought and ideology in East Asia in the 1930s and 1940s.

This book will appeal to scholars and students of Asian studies, nationalism studies, postcolonial studies, religious studies, and philosophy. In particular, it is essential reading for those interested in nationalism and modern Confucian thought in East Asia.

Available in hardback and e-copy:

ISBN 9781032619316

308 pages.

Published December 16, 2024 by Routledge.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NEWS

The news is that I am focused this summer 2025 on mastering this Informasia website.

Right now, I am combing through the current layout and updating it.

Once everything is order in a few days, I have arranged to contact the fine Support team at Strikingly, Informasia's web host.

We will discuss the correct template going forward. A reasonable fee is involved.

The current template is a long page with sections.

That must change to individual pages. No more endless scrolling!

Actually, I am excited to have reached this stage after four years.

Looks like Informasia has a community and continuity!

August 4, 2025 /Patricia Yarrow

BOOKS

ARTICLES

George Sioris, "The Silk and the Gold: Correcting the Course of Asian Studies", 2024

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GohZo59InVYEU3E5cPgSw4dg1WU5LxmU/view?usp=sharing

George Sioris, "The Creation of the World, Martyrdom et.al." 2025

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uzoYGXRpzM5xYEUkhcyKzdrld3EvnCiv/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=105775447281122203523&rtpof=true&sd=true

*Both articles are temporarily stored on Patricia Yarrow's Shared Google Drive. There is a way to add the document, which I will attend to soon. August 2025/PY

*

Contact Us

Would you like to join Informasia's e-mail list? It is easy and there are just a few notices.

Every month, there are three short Reminders of the approaching lecture of the month, and a longer follow-up Report shortly after the meeting.

Any comments and questions are most welcome. This website is very much in progress as of August 2025. /Patricia Yarrow

Support Informasia by inviting friends to join our Zoom meetings, always on the third Monday of every month.

Check us out on Facebook for announcements of the next meeting, as an "Event".

Informasia Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/307236340460985

Other Social Media (SMS) under developement. We do have a bluesky account, which is not active yet.

More thoughts on this soon.

Any suggestions, most welcome. Please send them to Patricia Yarrow at yarrowp@gmail.com

*

*

ABOUT INFORMASIA

Informasia launch

May 2020

Informasia community

The Informasia logo comes to us from designer Ritsuko Lynch, upon the recommendation of Alex Byrne. She is based in Santa Monica, California, and can be reached at: https://en.99designs.jp/profiles/2313262

Join Informasia's e-mail list

Every month's lecture includes three brief pre-meeting reminders.

New addition: The Vimeo link to the lecture presentation and discussion will be sent the day after the lecture.

A newsy follow-up Report completes the set a few days later.

E-mail: Shaun O'Dwyer odwyer.richard .shau n.228@m.kyushu-u.ac.jp

*Both articles are temporarily stored on Patricia Yarrow's Shared Google Drive.
There is a way to add the document, which I will attend to soon. August 2025/PY