EASTS advisory editor and renowned historian of science Shigeru Nakayama (中山茂) left this world on 10 May 2014. For STS scholars in East Asia, Professor Nakayama is best remembered as Thomas Kuhn's first Asian student at Harvard and the Japanese translator of his famous Structure of Scientific Revolutions (for Nakayama's account of this book and its influence on Japan, see EASTS 6, no. 4: 519–25). But Nakayama was also one of the leading academic organizers of his age. Described as “one of the founding fathers of Japanese STS” by our associate editor Togo Tsukahara, Nakayama inspired a generation of Japanese STS scholars. Inheriting the spirit of the paradigm shift, a group of scholars worked with Nakayama on several of his research projects, most notably becoming involved in the reconstruction of the origins of Japanese technoscience and in exploring the tangled history of science, technology, and policy in postwar Japan. Nakayama's projects also took new perspectives in criticizing higher education in science and engineering, as well as the role of universities in imperial and neoliberal Japan. Some of his works were nicely summarized in a panel session held in his memory, titled “The Life and Work of Nakayama Shigeru (1928–2014),” at the Fourteenth International Conference of the History of Science in East Asia on 6 July 2015, attended by Nakayama's family. 1
Until now, no comprehensive collection has captured the full breadth of this towering public intellectual figure, but this is changing with the ongoing publication by Editing Studio Kyu (編輯工房 球) of The Major Works in Japanese of Shigeru Nakayama (中山茂著作集). Headed by Junko Hariya (針谷順子), a long-time editorial collaborator of Nakayama's since the History of Science and Technology in Postwar Japan series (戦後日本の科学技術), Editing Studio Kyu has announced that it will publish Nakayama's major works, carefully selected by its general editor Hitoshi Yoshioka (吉岡斉) and editors Yuji Kawano (川野祐二), Kaoru Narisada (成定薫), Shuichi Tsukahara (塚原修一), and Tadashi Yoshida (吉田忠). The fifteen volumes of this collection will be:
A list in Japanese can be found at http://www.biblioq9.com/image/nakayamashigerupamphletural.jpg.
Volumes 3, 5, and 14 have already been published (as of September 2016), and volumes 7 and 13 are due out in early 2017. Published volumes can be obtained through Amazon.jp and other online bookstores in Japan, and overseas orders can be made by e-mailing the publishers at henshu@biblioq9.com.
EASTS is deeply grateful to have had Professor Nakayama serving us since our inception, and it is our hope that through this collection his intellectual legacy can be passed on to EASTS readers and to the wider East Asian scholarly community.
