The Art and Politics in East Asia Workshop

Presents:

Exploring the Philosophical and Historical Dimensions of

Contemporary Japan by Tracing Three “Turns”

A Special Presentation By:

Iwasaki Minoru

Tokyo University of Foreign Studies

“The ‘Memorial’ Turn in Contemporary Philosophy”

Narita Ryûichi

Japan Women’s University

“Spatial Turn and Temporal Turn in Contemporary Historical Studies.”

Monday, March 30

Social Sciences 302

4:30-6:30 PM

There is no paper for this talk. The talk will be in Japanese with English translation.

Abstract

Throughout the long latter half of the twentieth century, “Japan” took its actions and thought within the framework of the “postwar.” Today, however, this “postwar” has come to an end, and “Japan” has entered a “post-‘postwar’” condition. In our presentations, we will discuss “contemporary” Japan as the “post-‘postwar’” by exploring three “turns” in memory, time and space.

Iwasaki Minoru is Professor of philosophy and political thought at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. He is the co-editor of 戦後日本スタディーズ3 – 80, 90年代 (Postwar Japan Studies 3: 1980-90s, 2008) and継続する植民地主義―ジェンダー/民族/人種/階級 (Continuing Colonialism: Gender, Nation, Race, and Class, 2005). His published articles include “歴史学における想起と忘却の問題系(“Problematique of Recollection and Oblivion in Historical Studies”, 2002), and “Desire for a Poietic Metasubject: Miki Kiyoshi’s Technology Theory” in Total War and “Modernization” (Yamanouchi Yasushi, J. Victor Koschmann and Narita Ryûichi eds., Cornell UP, 1998).

Narita Ryûichi is Professor of modern Japanese history at Japan Women’s University. He is the author of大正デモクラシー (Taisho Democracy, 2007), 歴史学のポジショナリティ―歴史叙述とその周辺 (Positionality of Historical Studies – Historical Narratives and their Surroundings, 2006), “歴史”はいかに語られるか―1930年代「国民の物語」批判 (In What Way “History” is Narrated: Criticism of “National Narratives” in the 1930s, 2001), and「故郷」という物語―都市空間の歴史学 (Narratives of “Native Place”: Historical Studies of Urban Space,1998), and the co-editor of Total War and “Modernization” (Cornell UP, 1998).