Paper short abstract:

This paper explores potentiality of international/global Japanese studies, more specifically its possible conceptual and epistemological contributions to the contemporary debate about area studies, about the relationship between knowledge and the nation state, and about coloniality of knowledge.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores potentiality of emerging scholarly field organised under the aegis of international/global Japanese studies (kokusai nihon gaku or kokusai nihon kenkyū in Japanese). Though the Japanese term 'gaku' and 'kenkyū' correspond to English suffixes (-ics / -ology) that refer to a field of knowledge and signify a systematic learning and knowledge production, international/global Japanese studies is by no means a firmly established field. The current stature of international/global Japanese studies is best described as a phenomenon, an on-going process of (re)organizing interdisciplinary knowledge production on Japan within Japan, so much so that its scope, its objective, and its methodological prevalence is still open to discussion. This on-going nature is precisely why this paper seeks to consider 'potentiality' of international/global Japanese studies. And by 'potentiality', I mean to specifically suggest possible conceptual and epistemological contributions that this new emerging scholarly enterprise may have for the contemporary debate about area studies (the humanitas-anthropos nexus), the relationship between knowledge and the nation state manifested in the institutional formation of the disciplines (the humanitas-nation nexus), and coloniality of knowledge. The focal point of this paper, therefore, is not necessarily the process of policy implementation and the development of technocratic-managerial strategies for the establishment of international/global Japanese studies programs. But it is instead those scholarly debates that attempt to articulate a perception of Japan not as an axiomatic, stable object of knowledge, but as something being materially, discursively, and imaginatively constructed through various entanglements of histories. This reconfiguration of Japan as a historical construction not only encourages us to register coloniality of knowledge manifested both in area studies and the disciplines, but also allows us to contextualise Japan in a much broader geo-historical and geo-political context of Asia, and therefore to recuperate Japan's ambiguous historical position as both coloniser and as a country subjected to the imperatives of 'Western' modernity.

Paper short abstract:

The presentation will analyze the role of Japanese intellectuals in the debate regarding the Meiji Centennial (1968) with the aim of contextualizing the place of the debate in the cultural landscape of Japan in the 1960s and, more generally, in the country's postwar intellectual history.

Paper long abstract:

The Meiji Centennial (1968) was a crucial stage in the postwar process of constructing and disseminating memory in the Japanese society. The involvement of the population, the wide range of initiatives put in place to commemorate the anniversary, the attention given by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to the arrangement for the celebrations indicate how high the political stakes in the event was. The Jubilee was conceived as an opportunity to mark the country's impressive economic growth and its re-integration into the international community: Japan's achievements were artfully stressed, while unresolved issues and persistent sources of domestic conflict were left in the background.

Japanese intellectuals approached the anniversary in different ways. Some of them were chosen as members of the Preparatory Committee established by the government in 1966. Some others, such as the sinologist and cultural critic Takeuchi Yoshimi (1910-1977) and the writer Kuwabara Takeo (1904-1988), acted as leading supporters of a re-evaluation of the Meiji Restoration, proposing as early as in the late 1950s a debate on the opportunity to commemorate the anniversary. Finally, most of the historians, especially those affiliated with the "sengo rekishigaku" school, fiercely opposed the Meiji Centennial. From their point of view, the government-sponsored initiatives aimed at institutionalizing a historical narrative oblivious of the militaristic past, prone to glorify the Emperor and instrumental for legitimating the ruling party's vision of Japan's role in Asia and in the world.

The proposed presentation will analyze the role of Japanese intellectuals in the debate regarding the Meiji Centennial. Articles and public declarations appeared on academic journals and monthly magazines will be surveyed in order to investigate the arguments advanced by the supporters and critics of the celebrations and examine their relation with the "Shōwa history debate" (Shōwashi ronsō) and the "Modernization theory". The aim is to contextualize the place of the Meiji Centennial debate in the cultural landscape of Japan in the 1960s and, more generally, in the country's postwar intellectual history.

Paper short abstract:

This paper reveals some of the characteristics of 'knowledge' (chi) in postwar Japan in terms of the concept of 'dialogue' (taiwa). For this purpose, it examines the mutual relationship between the knowledge of intellectuals and common-sense knowledge in the country.

Paper long abstract:

This paper, by means of social constructivism, explores the mutual relationship between the knowledge of intellectuals and common-sense knowledge in postwar Japan in terms of the concept of 'dialogue', particularly through referring to the two social contexts of knowledge which determine their respective existential forms. It thereby identifies the core characteristics of 'knowledge' specific to postwar Japanese society and some difficulties with it. The word knowledge in this paper is divided into two kinds in terms of social constructivism: the knowledge of intellectuals (scientific expertise) and common-sense knowledge (everyday life knowledge). From a social constructivist perspective, the former comes into being along the same line as the latter.

The primary issues of this paper are built on the enquiry of why the knowledge of a society can be transformed whenever it is exported to another society. This articulates a hypothesis with reference to the transformation of the concept of 'dialectic' (Dialektik) in Japan: Japanese society, since importing the dialectical method from the West, has applied it exclusively from the unique perspective of 'flexibility', a simple aspect of the concept. It can be argued that dialectic is construed as a means of neutralising conflict and struggle in Japan. However, Hegel-Marx's model of dialectic, which many Japanese thinkers reference, does aim not solely to resolve conflict emerging in a dialogue as a logical process, but rather to change the status quo of a society: 'sublation' (Aufheben).

Do there exist any characteristics in ways of internalising knowledge with respect to a society's form of dialogue? It would appear that there exist ways of thinking and understanding specific to a society that elucidate the society's mentality and social unconscious and construct its form of dialogue. On the basis of this concern, I seek to clarify some specific characteristics of Japan's way of absorbing knowledge as has been determined by its own mindset while shining a light on the human action of dialogue.

Paper short abstract:

The presentation provides a detailed analysis of Maruyama Masao's 1948 introduction of his lectures on Tokugawa intellectual history. I focus on his explanation of the possible approaches to intellectual history that provides unique insight into the philosophical framework of his own thought.

Paper long abstract:

Maruyama Masao 丸山眞男 (1914-1996) was one of the most important thinkers of post-war Japan. While his famous analysis of Tokugawa intellectual history (1940-1944) or his essay on Japanese ultra-nationalism (1946) are frequently analysed (substantial examples are Kersten 1996, Karube 2006/2008, Seifert 2016, Stevens 2018), less attention is payed to his university lectures. In my presentation I give a detailed analysis of the methodological introduction ("On the methodology of intellectual history" 「思想史の方法論について」) of Maruyama's first post-war Tokyo University lecture series in which he focused on the topics he investigated in the Tokugawa studies, this time in a completely different historical atmosphere. In this introduction, which has not been examined in detail by Western scholarship yet, Maruyama provides an overview of the possible methodological approaches to intellectual history, using idealism and materialism as symbols of the two extremes of such approaches. He continues with describing what he considers the proper way of analysis, designating this method between the two extremes. He emphasises both the significance of the present in examining intellectual history, and the importance of understanding intellectual history for shaping the future. In my analysis I will (1) give an overview of the structure of Maruyama's concept described in the lecture, focusing on how he uses Western thinkers (e.g. Hegel, Marx, Troeltsch, Meinecke, Freyer) as representatives of certain types of approaches to the history of thought. Following this, (2) I place his own standpoint as expressed in the lecture in the context of his examinations in his war-time and post-war texts, including his position in the shutaisei debate. Based on this comparison, I will argue (3) that while Maruyama placed the proper methodological approach to intellectual history between the extremes of idealism and materialism, his own methodology can most properly be described as a certain compound of the two, that obviously relies on one of them at certain points, however consciously denies or goes beyond them should it be required by the nature of a certain topic.