40 YEARS SINCE REVERSION NEGOTIATING THE OKINAWAN: DIFFERENCE IN JAPAN TODAY Edited by Ina Hein and Isabelle Prochaska-Meyer = BEITRÄGE ZUR JAPANOLOGIE Band 44 (BzJ 44) # CONTENTS # Ina HEIN and Isabelle PROCHASKA-MEYER: Introduction: Negotiating the Okinawan Difference in Japan Today # History and Politics # Stanisław MEYER: “Ryūkyū shobun”: A Difficult Chapter in Okinawan History Gabriele VOGT: Setting Out to Imagine a New Community: Okinawa’s Reversion to Japan Beata BOCHORODYZ: Social Movements in Okinawa since 1945: Was the Reversion a Threshold in the Development of Civil Society? Message from Okinawa I: ASATO Eiko # Language # Patrick HEINRICH: Language or Dialect? The Place of the Ryukyuan Varieties in the Japonic Language Family KAWASAKI Sayaka: Japanese As a Foreign Language? The Introduction of the Japanese Language in Okinawan Primary Schools Aleksandra JAROSZ and Alfred F. MAJEWICZ: Retrieving a Moribund Language: Nikolay A. Nevskiy and His Miyakoan Dictionary in Ryukyuan Lexicology and in Scholarship # Representations and Images # Sepp LINHART: Deigo and Shureimon: The Visual Representation of Ryukyu on Ryukyuan Stamps (1948-1972) Compared to That of Okinawa on Japanese Stamps (1972-2012) and Japanese Regional Stamps (1989-2012) Ina HEIN: Writing Back: Literature from Okinawa – a Postcolonial Perspective SHIOTSUKI Ryoko: Shamanism As a Symbol for Okinawan-ness: Identity Politics in Japanese Films and Literature Depicting Okinawa Message from Okinawa II: ISHIKAWA Mao # Changes and Transformations # AKAMINE Masanobu: Development and Evolution of Ancestor Worship in Okinawa: Taking Account of the State System in Folk Culture Studies TADA Osamu: From Hawaii to Okinawa: The Expansion of the Paradise Image and Tourism beyond Time and Place Contributors