■Topics 2018
2018-06-15 NichibunkenNews
International Symposium to Commemorate Nichibunken’s 30th Anniversary Report (May 20–21, 2018) “Japanese Studies around the World: In Search of Critical Proposals” (Day 2)
On the second day of the symposium, presentations and commentators’ responses were made in the areas of “modern and contemporary literature” and “politics and thought,” followed by a general discussion among all the participants before the closing of the symposium.First, in the area of “modern and contemporary literature,” Wang Zhongchen, professor of Tsinghua University, gave a presentation on “Attempt at the Construction of a New ‘World Literature’: Focus on Novelist Hotta Yoshie’s (1918–1998) Haguruma (Cogwheel).” In universities in China, he said, Japanese literature is treated as part of world literature. He suggested that reading Hotta Yoshie’s novel Haguruma either as a sequel to or as a parody of Fushi (Putrefaction) by modern Chinese novelist Mao Dun (1896–1981) in the lineage of postwar Chinese literature might be a way to break away from the centrism of the West in traditional world literature and construct a new, multilingual world literature.
Yoon Sangin, professor of Seoul National University, titling his presentation provocatively, “Exhortation toward the Study of a ‘Self-Centered” Japanese Literature,” said he had been agonizing from the suspicion that he was being “deceived” by English literature when he eventually came across Natsume Sōseki’s decolonization ideology of “self-centeredness.” From that point of view he asserted that the study of Japanese literature in Korea today has stumbled into the pitfall of other-centeredness. He persuasively presented his view advocating the need and potential for original, “self-centered” research breaking away from the values of the “Japan-as-communal-body” approach.
Barbara Hartley, senior lecturer at the University of Tasmania, gave a report on the status of Japanese studies in Australia. Since its beginning in Sydney in 1917, Japanese studies has been influenced in various ways by the Australian federal government’s policy changes, including its 1980s policy introducing Japanese-language education and the downsizing of humanities scholarship with the rise of neoliberalism since the 1990s. Courses on Japanese classical literature have recently disappeared in Australian universities. With many ardent supporters of Japanese studies in Australia, if a shift in Japanese studies could be made from “area studies” to “transnational studies” that would grasp the concept of “Japan” in a comprehensive perspective going beyond “country” and “area,” then Japanese studies might be able to acquire a new “raison d’être,” she emphatically argued. Commentator Pullattu Abraham George, professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, agreed, remarking that a similar problem confronts scholars in many countries. In response to Barbara Hartley’s question of whether Japanese studies requires perfect Japanese-language proficiency, he pointed out a tendency in India to think it is okay to use English. He also proposed that Nichibunken construct an institutional system in which it would take the lead in collaborative research in the world.
In the area of “politics and thought,” Frederick R. Dickinson, professor at the University of Pennsylvania, first analyzed in detail Japanese political and economic changes over the thirty years since the founding of Nichibunken as well as the trends of the topics selected for Japanese studies during these years, and then pointed out that modern Japanese history had the power to overturn the ascendancy of the West in conventional world history and concluded by saying the twenty-first century would be the age of Asia. He proposed that Japan be approached from the viewpoints of the history of globalization and the story of “Asianization.”
Next, Huang Tzuchin, researcher at the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, described how a collaborative research project he had headed at Nichibunken in 2014 on the history of the second Sino-Japanese War was later resumed as a three-year project in Taiwan. He explained that the significance of the research project lay in aiming at mutual understanding by incorporating new research perspectives, such as reexaminations of the war escalation process and of the position of Manchukuo during the war period, into the different understandings of history and different approaches to research between Japan and China and between China and Taiwan. He thus offered a future approach to international research exchange among the three.
Han Dongyu, professor of Northeast Normal University, China, gave his presentation on the late Ming dynasty scholar Zhu Shunshui (1600–1682), the topic of research he dealt with during his one-year stay at Nichibunken in 2010. He presented the major findings of his research on the theme including his fieldwork in Japan. In support of the Ming court, Zhu Shunshui engaged in trade with Japan and Vietnam aimed at restoring Ming rule and eventually settled in Japan. Han explored why Zhu refused to accept a total of twelve imperial invitations for high government posts, which won him the nickname of the Ming “Zheng Jun” (man wanted by the Ming government). In Japan Han devoted himself to unearthing Zhu-related historical records and shedding further light on Zhu’s cross-national associations with such figures as Mito Mitsukuni and Zheng Chenggong and the development of his thought. Han described the process leading to his conclusions with great verve, making for a memorable presentation.
Following the guest speakers’ presentations, Guo Lianyou, head of the Beijing Center for Japanese Studies, Beijing Foreign Studies University, with which Nichibunken signed an academic exchange agreement in June 2018, said in his summary report that he was impressed by the strong demand for the sharing of research findings and information on Japanese studies and expressed his agreement with such sharing. The participants engaged in general discussion before the closing of the symposium.
Generation change is taking place at Nichibunken as the Center marks its thirtieth anniversary. How does it look in the eyes of young scholars? What is the future direction of Japanese studies and what role Nichibunken should perform? The two-day symposium was very fruitful in that participants from a broad spectrum of specialized fields and disciplines were able to share their experiences and research findings as well as awareness of the issues arising from the status of Japanese studies in the world.
