John Breen

Biographic Data

ID518980
NAMEJohn Breen
GIVEN NAMESJohn
FAMILY NAMEBreen
SIGNATUREBREEN J
AFFILIATIONSUniversity of London
ORCID0000-0001-8316-557X
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS40
TOTAL CITATIONS17
AUTHOR COUNT39
EDITOR COUNT1
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1990
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2025
H-INDEX2

  • A Menace to Free Labor: Anti-Catholicism, the American Protective Association, and Working-Class Formation in Gilded Age America

    Open AccessJohn BreenARTICLEThe Journal of the Gilded Age and…2025

    By focusing on the American Protective Association (A.P.A.), this article demonstrates how anti-Catholicism influenced free labor ideologies and working-class movements during the Gilded Age. The labor movement in the late nineteenth century generally believed that the so-called “dangerous classes” threatened working-class social mobility and economic independence. Religious bigotries, though, often dictated which people and institutions were con…

  • Religion, Power, and the Rise of Shinto in Early Modern Japan

    Allan G Grapard, Yijiang Zhong et al.BOOKReligion, Power, and the Rise of…2021

    This book sheds new light on the relationship between religion and state in early modern Japan, and demonstrates the growing awareness of Shinto in both the political and the intellectual elite of Tokugawa Japan, even though Buddhism remained the privileged means of stately religious control. The first part analyses how the Tokugawa government aimed to control the populace via Buddhism and at the same time submitted Buddhism to the sacralization …

  • Sannō Matsuri: Fabricating Festivals in Modern Japan

    John Breen, John M BreenARTICLEJournal of Religion in Japan2020

    This study of the Sannō Festival at Hiyoshi Taisha in Shiga Prefecture starts from the premise that all festivals reproduce and reinvent themselves over time, obfuscating their origins, typically claiming specious roots in the ancient or mythical past. Firstly, I analyze the Sannō Festival as performed today, drawing on my own festival fieldwork. I then adopt a historical approach, deploying historical sources to recreate the festival in its prem…

  • The Quality of Emperorship in 21st Century Japan: Reflections on the Reiwa Accession

    Open AccessJohn BreenARTICLEJapan focus2020

    On 8 August 2016, Emperor Akihito 明仁天皇 (r. 1989-2019) appeared on national TV to address the Japanese people for only the second time in his twenty seven year reign. His first appearance was five years before in March 2011 in response to the devastation of the Great East Japan Earthquake. In 2016, it was the very different matter of abdication that animated him. In a performance that was all the more riveting for being understated, he informed th…

  • Abdication, Succession and Japan's Imperial Future: An Emperor's Dilemma

    Open AccessJohn Breen, John M BreenARTICLEJapan focus2019

    On 30 April 2019, 86-year old Emperor Akihito made history. He became the first emperor in 200 years to abdicate, yielding the throne to his son. The trigger for this historic moment was an extraordinary event that took place three years earlier. In August 2016, the emperor appeared on NHK and all TV channels to address the nation. His purpose? To intimate his desire to abdicate. The address, of questionable constitutionality, set in motion a deb…

  • A Social History of the Ise Shrines: Divine Capital

    Mark Teeuwen, John BreenBOOKA Social History of the Ise Shrines2017

    "Traces the history of the Ise shrines from the 7th century until today, focusing on the many episodes of crisis that transformed the social landscape around the shrines"

  • Adapting a Parent-Completed, Socioemotional Questionnaire in China: The Ages & Stages Questionnaires: Social-Emotional

    Open AccessXiaoyan Bian, M Herlihy et al.ARTICLEInfant Mental Health Journal2017Cited by: 7References: 12

    The Ages & Stages Questionnaire: Social-Emotional (ASQ:SE; Squires, Bricker, & Twombly, 2002a), developed in the United States, was translated and adapted for use in China. Lack of valid and reliable instruments for identifying social and emotional delays in young children is a worldwide issue. Professionals in China have recently focused efforts on developing methods for early identification of social, emotional, and behavioral issues in the bir…

  • Strategic Orientation and Performance of SMEs in Malaysia

    Open AccessWan Mohd Nazdrol Bin Wan Mohd Nasir, A Al Mamun et al.ARTICLESAGE Open2017Cited by: 1References: 42

    The primary objective of this study is to critically examine the effect of strategic orientation on the performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia. Three most comprehensive constructs, namely, entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation, and interaction orientation were adopted to present a holistic picture of the effect of strategic orientation on firm performance. This study adopts a cross-sectional design and uses the s…

  • Y asukuni ( T okyo Shrine to the J apanese Military War Dead)

    Open AccessJohn BreenCHAPTERWiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of…2015

    Yasukuni, the Tokyo shrine to the Japanese military war dead, is a contested site. It is a place of mourning, reflection, and peace but at the same time it is a site that promotes ultra‐nationalism and is therefore a magnet to ultra‐nationalists from across Japan and beyond. The Yasukuni shrine has been at the center of controversy since the 1980s, not least because it enshrines war criminals, men condemned for inflicting untold suffering on Japa…

  • Lust, Commerce, and Corruption: An Account of What I Have Seen and Heard, by an Edo Samurai

    Anne Walthall, Fumiko Miyazaki et al.BOOKLust, Commerce, and Corruption2014

  • Lust, Commerce, and Corruption: An Account of What I Have Seen and Heard, by an Edo Samurai

    Anne Walthall, Fumiko Miyazaki et al.BOOKLust, Commerce, and Corruption2014

    By 1816, Japan had recovered from the famines of the 1780s and moved beyond the political reforms of the 1790s. Despite persistent economic and social stresses, the country seemed to be approaching a new period of growth. The idea that the shogunate would not last forever was far from anyone's mind. Yet, in that year, an anonymous samurai author completed one of the most detailed critiques of Edo society known today. Writing as Buyō Inshi, “a ret…

  • Shinto in History

    John Breen, Mark TeeuwenBOOKShinto in History2013

  • Shinto in History: Ways of the Kami

    John Breen, Mark TeeuwenBOOKShinto in History2013

  • Popes, Bishops and War Criminals: Reflections on Catholics and Yasukuni in post-war Japan

    Open AccessJohn Breen, John M BreenARTICLEJapan focus2013

    In November 1945, General McArthur invited two Catholic priests to GHQ to sound them out on a proposal he was poised to implement, namely the razing of Yasukuni, the Tokyo shrine dedicated to the Japanese war dead. The priests were Bruno Bitter, SJ, head of Sophia University, and Patrick Byrne, Maryknoll. Both men quickly declared their opposition. It was, they insisted, the right and duty of citizens everywhere to honour their war dead; Yasukuni…

  • Yasukuni Shrine: Ritual and Memory

    Open AccessJohn BreenARTICLEJapan focus2013

    Yasukuni is first and foremost a site for the performance of ritual before the kami (gods), those men, women and some children who sacrificed their lives for the imperial cause. This article examines the organizing of space and ritual at Tokyo's shrine to the war dead and the implications for memory.The most important of several ritual spaces is that within the Honden or Main sanctuary. This is the central, elevated building located along the eas…

  • A New History of Shinto

    Open AccessJohn Breen, John M Breen et al.BOOKNew History of Shinto2010

    List of Illustrations vi Conventions and Abbreviations Used in the Text vii Prologue ix 1 An Alternative Approach to the History of 1 2 Kami Shrines, Myths, and Rituals in Premodern Times 24 3 The History of a Shrine: Hie 66 4 The History of a Myth: The Sun-Goddess and the Rock-Cave 129 5 The Daijo-sai: A Shinto Rite of Imperial Accession 168 6 Issues in Contemporary 199 Conclusion 221 Notes 229 References 242 Index 253

  • “Conventional Wisdom” and the Politics of Shinto in Postwar Japan

    Open AccessJohn BreenARTICLEPOLITICS AND RELIGION JOURNAL2010

    In January 2010, the Supreme Court delivered a historic verdict of unconstitutionality in a case involving Sorachibuto, a Shinto shrine in Sunagawa city, Hokkaido. All of the national newspapers featured the case on their front pages. As the case makes abundantly clear, issues of politics and religion, politics and Shinto, are alive and well in 21st century Japan. In this essay, I seek to shed light on the fraught relationship between politics an…

  • Resurrecting the Sacred Land of Japan: The State of Shinto in the Twenty-First Century

    Open AccessJohn BreenARTICLEJapanese Journal of Religious…2010

    This article explores a subject overlooked in both Japanese and non-Japanese scholarship, namely the state of Shinto in twenty-first century Japan. It addresses Shinto from the perspective of the Shinto establishment, and adopts a material approach, focusing on the material objects known as jingu taima or Ise amulets. The approach is justified by the Shinto establishment's ongoing campaign to disseminate Ise amulets to ten million Japanese homes.…

  • The Determinants and Barriers Affecting Innovation Management in SMTEs in the Tourist Park Sector

    Suzanne Bergin-Seers, John Breen et al.ARTICLETourism Recreation Research2008References: 21

    Innovation, the generation and adoption of new ideas, has become increasingly important for firms to grow or even to survive in the current economic climate. This paper focuses on tourism enterprises in the tourist park sector where the firms are largely small-medium tourism enterprises (SMTEs). Such firms are often characterized by their limited resources, yet they need to both attract, and retain customers to remain sustainable. Innovation is, …

  • Suicide is a social not an individual problem: Japan in International Perspective

    Open AccessJohn Breen, J E Breen et al.ARTICLEJapan focus2007

    On Saturday 25 August 2007, NHK broadcast a programme called Seishonen no jisatsu o kangaeyo [Let's reflect on youth suicide]. The programme was prompted by the National police agency's publication of new statistics on the problem of youth suicide. In 2006, 886 Japanese youths took their own lives, invariably in response to bullying. 'Youth' as defined by the NPA refers to primary, middle, secondary school as well as university students. The 2006…

  • The dead and the living in the land of peace: A sociology of the Yasukuni shrine

    John BreenARTICLEMortality2004

    The author argues that the Yasukuni shrine has to be understood as the ritual site it is. The essay analyses the rites which Yasukuni priests perform for the war dead and proposes that Yasukuni rites are as much concerned with reconstructing in the present the glories of Japan's imperial past as they are with the act of mourning

  • Introduction: Death issues in 21st century Japan

    John Breen, John M BreenARTICLEMortality2004

    The Mainichi broadsheet recently told the story of a Mrs Kawasaki Yoko who had lost her husband to cirrhosis of the liver (Mainichi, 12.3.03: 21). Mrs Kawasaki's approach to her husband's funeral a

  • Shinto and Christianity: A History of Conflict and Compromise

    John Breen, John M BreenCHAPTERHandbook of Christianity in Japan2003

  • Shinto

    Edited by Nobutaka Inoue, John Breen et al.BOOKShinto2003

  • The Rituals of Anglo-Japanese Diplomacy: Imperial Audiences in Early Meiji Japan

    Open AccessJohn BreenCHAPTERHistory of Anglo-Japanese…2002

    The date is Friday 26 March 1868. The place is the Shishinden chamber of the Kyoto palace. The emperor reclines south-facing against a chair placed on the michodai. He is clad in Heian court garb, his eyebrows shaved, his cheeks rouged and his lips painted red and gold. To the emperor's left sits Sanjo Sanetomi; Iwakura Tomomi is outside the canopy to the emperor's left. Both men are first ministers in the new government. Yamashina no miya, head …