Paper short abstract:

This paper will investigate how issues of identity, power and knowledge do intersect in the entangled process between the academic field of Japanese Studies, students of Japanese Studies and wider glocalising interests for 'Japan', with a particular focus on contemporary Italy.

Paper long abstract:

In the light of post Cold War globalization, neoliberal hegemony and quality assurance imperatives, Area Studies, including Japanese Studies (or Japanology), in Euro-American academia are facing an increasing sense of uncertainty. On the one hand, there have been criticism about the epistemological assumptions that have shaped Area Studies as a modern academic field: from methodological nationalism and regionalism (Richter 2007, Holbig 2015) to imperialist politics of knowledge (Sakai 2018). On the other, new glocal challenges are arising, due not only to the wider institutional crisis of the Humanities and Liberal Arts, but also due to the difficulties to cope with the changing and context specific demands, coming from contemporary economy, politics and society.

In this regard, Japanese Studies have to some extent benefited from the global success of Japanese popular media and food cultures, further sponsored by Cool Japan nation branding. This has contributed to turn 'Japan' to a mainstream object of interest, desire and consumption, as well as to increase enrollment in academic courses to study or specialize in 'Japan'. While Euro-American neo-Japanism of the XXI century among young people has been already investigated (Otmazgin 2013, Pellitteri 2018, Carlson 2018), there is still little research on how it may have affected Japanese Studies, and especially on how Japanese Studies may have adapted to this neo-Japanism, shaping both students' education and wider interpretations of 'Japan' outside the university.

The paper will explore this entangled process, by investigating how issues of identity, power and knowledge intersect in framing the status of 'Japan' in relation to its academic legitimacy as a distinctive object of study, or as subcultural capital among younger generations and Japan specialists in the public sphere. By focusing on the context of contemporary Italy, it argues how modern assumptions of 'Japan' as a unique, exclusivist and orientalised other are strategically re-activated in order to claim epistemological privilege on 'Japan'; however, it suggests that this very strategic orientalism contributes also to perpetuate subaltern and mutually enforcing self-seclusion, both of Japanese Studies from prevailing or normative academic disciplines, and of Japan-fans or Japanologists from mainstream societal relations and hegemonic public discourse.