We are pleased to introduce ourselves to the Cambridge Core family as the co-editors of Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus. Tristan is a professor of modern Japanese history at Nagoya University, specializing in colonialism, architecture, urban planning, film, and pop culture. Mary is a professor of Asian politics and international relations at Drake University, specializing in Japanese foreign policy, political economy, memory politics, identity, and gender.

We joined APJJF in 2023 to usher the journal into its next stage, excited to undertake the daunting task of upholding the standard of quality that readers of APJJF had come to expect since the journal’s founding in 2002 under the leadership of Dr. Mark Selden of Cornell University and the State University of New York at Binghamton.

We were both avid readers of the journal before joining. APJJF has been indispensable throughout our careers in terms of our academic research and classroom instruction as scholars of Japan and the Asia-Pacific (or Indo-Pacific) more broadly. We work closely with the tireless members of the Board of Directors, the editorial board, and the many contributing editors to publish the interventionist, socially-conscious, and empirically rigorous scholarly research and commentary that have made APJJF such a trusted and important resource for so many readers over the years.

We are also both fully committed to the idea that academics have a social responsibility as public intellectuals to engage broader communities both inside and outside academia through our scholarship.  APJJF was a pioneer of open-access peer-reviewed research, and we are eager to build on the journal’s reputation and success in providing a widely-accessible venue for both cutting-edge scholarship and expert contextualization of issues affecting the Asia-Pacific.

One of our favorite parts of our job as co-editors is building relationships with our authors. We work closely with authors to bring a diversity of voices and viewpoints to our readership, and are passionate about promoting the publication of work by early-career scholars. In this way, we look forward to carrying on APJJF’s mission of pushing the boundaries of the field forward towards new methodologies and analytical perspectives.

In addition, since coming into the position of co-editors, we have introduced a new website, on which readers will continue to be able to find all the research we publish as well as online exclusives that utilize the digital space to provide timely commentary on hot topics and visual engagement. In the coming year also watch for updated course readers, and other exciting developments.

Learn more about the journal by visiting cambridge.org/apj.