I’ll be in Nagano prefecture for the next few days, and while making the scenic journey up I listened to books for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was “Frontiers of Japanese Philosophy: Facing the Twenty-First Century,” edited by Lam Wing-keung and Cheung Ching-yuen. This collection of academic essays presents an eclectic review of many aspects of most post-Meiji Restoration Japanese philosophy. Some of this is pretty esoteric, with even some base knowledge of Japanese philosophical writings/thinkers being insufficient to deeply engage with a good chunk of these essays. Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, for me the most interesting chapters skewed more sociological and historical in nature, with standouts being "Kōyama Iwao’s Philosophy of World History" Sugawara Jun and "Aging, Dying, and Bereavement in Contemporary Japan" by Carl Becker. Rather than reading it straight through as I did, you're probably better off picking out chapters that interest you and where you already have deep background knowledge https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/storage/Frontiers%204%20(for%20web).pdf

Next was “For Profit” by William Magnuson. This is a great tour through different corporate eras in the West, beginning in ancient Rome and continuing to the present day. Each chapter focuses on a particular organization, with Magnuson examining its unique organizational innovations compared to its predecessors. The last chapter does a decent job connecting it all together, but each case study is fairly disconnected from the others, leaving significant gaps in tracing the evolution of the corporate form. It's still a fantastic book, and it nicely contextualizes much of today's ahistorical debate on the purpose of companies. Highly recommend https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/william-magnuson/for-profit/9781541601581/

Last was “Archiving Machines” by Amelia Acker. This is an engaging examination of the history of digital data storage, focusing on technologies and initiatives centering that paradigm. This is most clear when Acker is analyzing more centralized systems, particularly early US government attempts to create vast databases that posed varying privacy risks. As we get closer to the modern day the analytical throughline becomes a bit muddied, although what does remain clear is how data is stored and controlled is deeply sociotechnical. Highly recommend https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262553247/archiving-machines/