Waseda University Library
Waseda University Library is one of the largest libraries in Japan. Founded in 1882, it currently holds between 4 and 5 million volumes and 46,000 serials.
Waseda University is a Japanese private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. It is usually ranked among the best private universities in Japan. The Thammasat University Library owns several books published by Waseda University.
They are from the Center of Excellence in Contemporary Asian Studies, Waseda University, and the Waseda University Global COE Program, Global Institute for Asian Regional Integration (GIARI).
As its website indicates, GIARI
exists to promulgate research on Asian regional integration and regional cooperation. It also aims to foster highly skilled human resources, able to make significant contributions to such integration and cooperation. GIARI encompasses great diversity in its research areas (i.e. history, diplomacy, security, trade, finance, the environment, human rights, and education) and academic approaches. GIARI adopts such an interdisciplinary, comprehensive and inclusive perspective in order to understand and analyze Asian regional integration and cooperation theoretically; our ultimate goal is the systemization of a theory of Asian regional integration. Finally, GIARI will use its research findings to cultivate highly-specialized human resources, able to take on the mantle of Asian regional integration and cooperation; alongside the Graduate Schools of Political Science, of Economics, and of Social Sciences, and the OAS, the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies will function as the focal point of an educational platform for Japanese and international students from both within and outside the Asian region.
GIARI Program Leader Professor Emeritus Satoshi Amako explains:
The aim of GIARI is to produce outstanding graduates, specialists in their fields, equipped with comprehensive and sophisticated knowledge, able to contribute to the realization of regional interests, a newly emerging concept that goes beyond the traditional notion of national interests. GIARI is also intent on establishing itself as a world-leader in the promotion of Asian integration, while working to find solutions for many of the serious problems that the Asian region faces. Asian integration is already a reality; it is happening, unprompted, right now. Greater regional cooperation on such issues as the environment and large-scale natural disasters is occurring organically. At the same time, however, the Asian region holds within it diverse obstacles to mutual cooperation, such as differences in political structure and the level of economic development, religious and lifestyle differences, and mutual animosity rooted deep in history. The result is that systematic Asian integration is still failing to achieve all that it could…
In addition, the TU Library also owns a number of theses written by Thai students at Waseda University. For example, A Consumer Centric Approach to the Evaluation of Major ICT Policies in Thailand by Ajarn Manit Satitsamitpong at the Waseda University Graduate School of Global Information and Telecommunication Studies.
Ajarn Manit is now a Lecturer in the Faculty of the College of Innovation, Thammasat University. He earned a Doctor of Science degree in Telecommunication Economics at Waseda University in 2013, after receiving a master of science degree in IT Management at the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, an M.B.A. in Management Information Systems at the University of Illinois, USA, and a bachelor of science degree in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. TU students who are interested in the fields of information technology, political planning, and telecommunications policy should find it useful to look at Ajarn Manit’s research.
Another outstanding thesis from the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies (GSAPS), Waseda University, is A Cultural Explanation of the 1932 Political Change in Siam: Power of Narration and National Identity in Thai Politics by Ajarn Nakharin Mektrairat.
It is shelved in the Theses Stacks of the Professor Direk Jayanama Library, Faculty of Political Science, Tha Prachan campus. Ajarn Nakharin Mektrairat is a Justice of the Constitutional Court and Professor at the TU Faculty of Political Science.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in Politics and Government at the Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University, and a master’s degree in History at the Graduate School of the Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, before receiving his Ph.D. in International Studies from GSAPS, Waseda University. GSAPS is an independent graduate school focusing on social sciences and international relations. GSAPS has students, faculty, and alumni from over 50 countries, making it Waseda University’s leading center for international graduate education and one of Japan’s most culturally diverse graduate institutes. As its website states,
The mission of the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies (GSAPS) is based on two principles: 1) To pursue academic research that balances global and regional perspectives in addressing the range of historical, political, economic, business management, industrial, social, and cultural issues arising among and across the nations of the Asia-Pacific region; and 2) To cultivate future professionals who are experts in their fields and who can apply their advanced training and knowledge to contribute broadly to improving the living standards and social conditions of individuals around the world…
Earlier this year, Ajarn Sarawudhi Wisaprom, a Lecturer in Political Science at the College of Politics and Governance, Mahasarakham University, published an in-depth study, On Reading Nakharin Mektrairat ’s academic work–Decoding his methodology and constructing body of knowledge of Thai socio-political history and Thai Politics.
This text provided more proof that reading academic research by creative and highly accomplished ajarns, including Ph.D. theses, can be well worth the effort. Ajarn Sarawudhi’s abstract explains:
As a political scientist and historian, Nakharin Mektrairat’s methodology and body of knowledge in Thai socio-political history and Thai politics are defined as “interdisciplinary” which combines humanities and social sciences’ research approaches. His (personal) life, academic and administrative work as well as changes in humanities and social sciences society since 1970s became the “context” that shapes his thought which affects his research methodology. Nakharin Mektrairat’s historical research approach adopts both historical methodology and social concepts, which is affected by four factors. The first factor is the influences from historical philosophy such as the Annales School, the New Left, the Cambridge School and the western social concept theory. The second factor is based on “critical Thai Studies” in Thai academic society since 1970s, which differed from the “mainstream”. The last factor is research common traditions of “Japanese-style Thai Study” which focuses on using historical evidence—”primary source” in particular. All factors which have been adapted for doing research. Meanwhile, Nakharin Mektrairat’s political research, relating to local government, decentralization, provincial authority, the Constitution, and political institutions, has adopted humanity methodology especially in his studies of historical background, changes, and historical development.
Still another thesis in the TU Library collection from Waseda University by a Thai researcher is The Economic Roles of the Sino-Thai Community in the Northern Region of Thailand from 1900 to 1960: A Case Study of Lampang Province by Ajarn Kanokwan Uthongsap.
Ajarn Kanokwan is a Lecturer at the College of Interdisciplinary Studies, Thammasat University Lampang, specializing in Ethnicity and Development.
These and other examples show the active educational and intellectual exchange between Thammasat University and Waseda University through their respective libraries.
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)